International press freedom groups condemn killing of Maltese investigative journalist

“The mur­der of a promi­nent inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist in broad day­light in an EU Mem­ber State under­scores the seri­ous­ness of this crime. Daphne Caru­a­na Galizia’s work as a jour­nal­ist to hold pow­er to account and shine a light on cor­rup­tion is vital to main­tain­ing our demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions. Her killing is a loss for her coun­try and for Europe”, Han­nah Mach­lin, project man­ag­er for Index on Censorship’s data plat­form Map­ping Media Free­dom, said.

Daphne Caru­a­na Gal­izia was killed when the car she was dri­ving explod­ed in Bid­ni­ja around 15.00 on 16 Octo­ber in what is thought to have been a  tar­get­ed attack..

“The bar­bar­ic mur­der of Daphne Caru­a­na Gal­izia is an attack on jour­nal­ism itself. This crime is meant to intim­i­date every inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist,” Dr Lutz Kinkel, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of the Euro­pean Cen­tre for Press and Media Free­dom, said.

“Because Prime Min­is­ter Joseph Mus­cat and parts of Malta’s polit­i­cal elite were tar­gets of Galizia’s dis­clo­sures, we strong­ly rec­om­mend an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion of this case. The killers have to be found and put on trial.”

Inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Daphne Caru­a­na Galizia,killed by a car bomb on Octo­ber 16 2017 (pho­to: daphnecaruanagalizia.com)

The blast left her vehi­cle in sev­er­al pieces and threw debris into a near­by field. Half an hour before the pow­er­ful explo­sion, the jour­nal­ist post­ed a com­ment about a libel claim the prime minister’s chief of staff had brought against a for­mer oppo­si­tion leader over com­ments the lat­ter made about corruption.

Gal­izia filed a police report 16 days ago say­ing she was being threatened.

Gal­izia had con­duct­ed a series of high pro­file cor­rup­tion inves­ti­ga­tions and has been sub­ject to dozens of libel suits and harass­ment. Because of her research, in Feb­ru­ary, assets were frozen fol­low­ing a request filed by Eco­nom­ic Min­is­ter Chris Car­dona and his EU pres­i­den­cy pol­i­cy offi­cer Joseph Gerada.

On 24 August oppo­si­tion leader Adri­an Delia filed a law­suit against her over sto­ries link­ing him to off­shore accounts totalling to £1 mil­lion earned from alleged pros­ti­tu­tion in Lon­don flats. On 11 March Sil­vio Debono, own­er of the real estate invest­ment com­pa­ny DB Group, filed 19 libel cas­es against her after Caru­a­na Gal­izia pub­lished a num­ber of arti­cles about his deals with the Mal­tese gov­ern­ment to take over a large tract of high val­ue pub­lic land.

Gal­izia also con­duct­ed an inves­ti­ga­tion link­ing the Prime Min­is­ter Joseph Mus­cat and his wife Michelle to secret off­shore bank accounts to alleged­ly hide pay­ments from Azerbaijan’s rul­ing fam­i­ly, which were unveiled in the Pana­ma Papers. She worked on this inves­ti­ga­tion with her son Matthew Caru­a­na Gal­izia, a jour­nal­ist for the Pulitzer prize win­ning Inter­na­tion­al Con­sor­tium of Inves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ists, who has had his posts on alle­ga­tions of wrong­do­ing by Prime Min­is­ter Joseph Mus­cat and his asso­ciates cen­sored on Face­book.

On 17 Octo­ber 2017, her fam­i­ly filed an urgent appli­ca­tion for the Duty Mag­is­trate Con­sue­lo Scer­ri Her­rera to abstain from inves­ti­gat­ing Caru­a­na Galizia’s mur­der because of the court’s “fla­grant con­flict of inter­est”. In 2011, the mag­is­trate ini­ti­at­ed court pro­ceed­ings against the jour­nal­ist over com­ments she had made about Mag­is­trate Herrera.

Sev­en reports of vio­la­tions of press free­dom were ver­i­fied in Mal­ta in 2017, accord­ing to Index on Censorship’s Map­ping Media Free­dom project. Five of those are linked to Caru­a­na Gal­izia and her family.

The mur­der has brought wide­spread con­dem­na­tion from the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty includ­ing state­ments from Coun­cil of Europe Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Thor­b­jørn Jagland and OSCE’s Media Free­dom Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Harlem Désir.

We, the under­signed press free­dom organ­i­sa­tions call for:

• An inde­pen­dent and trans­par­ent inves­ti­ga­tion into the killing of Daphne Caru­a­na Galizia
• Pro­tec­tion for her fam­i­ly mem­bers and for oth­er Mal­tese jour­nal­ists who have been under threat
• Mea­sures to pro­tect the envi­ron­ment for inde­pen­dent and crit­i­cal jour­nal­ism to ensure that reporters can work freely

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Arti­cle 19 

The Asso­ci­a­tion of Euro­pean Jour­nal­ists (AEJ)  

The Cen­ter for Inves­tiga­tive Reporting 

Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Journalists 

The Euro­pean Cen­tre for Press and Media Freedom

The Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (EFJ) 

Free­dom of the Press Foundation

Index on Censorship 

Inter­na­tion­al News Safe­ty Insti­tute (INSI) 

Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (IFJ) 

Inter­na­tion­al Press Insti­tute (IPI) 

Osser­va­to­rio Bal­cani e Cau­ca­so Transeu­ropa (OBCT) 

Ossigeno per I’nformazione 

Plat­form of Inde­pen­dent Jour­nal­ism (P24) 

Reporters Sans Fron­tieres (RSF) 

South East Europe Media Organ­i­sa­tion (SEEMO)