Ten Maltese suspects were arrested on Monday, 4 December, over the car bomb slaying of a prominent investigative journalist, the prime minister and other authorities said, about six weeks after the assassination that shocked Malta and drew European Union pressure to ensure rule of law here.
Daphne Caruana Galizia, Malta’s best-known investigative journalist, was killed on Monday, 16 October, when a powerful bomb blew up her car, police said.
Caruana Galizia, 53, ran a hugely popular blog in which she relentlessly highlighted cases of alleged corruption, often involving politicians from the Mediterranean island of Malta.
Eight Maltese citizens were arrested because of a “reasonable suspicion” of their involvement in Galizia's killing, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told reporters at a news conference. Shortly afterward, he tweeted that two others had been arrested.
The two additional suspects are also Maltese, Home Minister Michael Farrugia said.
Muscat, who faced accusations of wrong-doing by Caruana Galizia earlier this year, had denounced her killing, calling it a “barbaric attack on press freedom”.
“I will not rest until I see justice done in this case. Our country deserves justice,” he had said in a televised statement, calling for national unity. The Prime Minister also offered a major reward to anyone with information about the killing, saying no expense would be spared in solving the crime.
Muscat called early elections in June as a vote of confidence to counter Caruana Galizia's allegations of corruption.
She said documents in a small Malta-based bank showed that Muscat’s wife was the beneficial owner of a company in Panama, and that large sums of money had been moved between the company and bank accounts in Azerbaijan.
Both Muscat and his wife denied the accusation and Muscat won re-election.
Dutch forensic experts and investigators from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are helping the local police probe the murder.
“My Mother Was Killed For Exposing Corruption”
Galizia’s son Matthew had said his mother had been killed by a car bomb because of her work exposing political corruption, as hundreds of people demonstrated to demand justice after her death.
World’s Press Condemns Murder
The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and the World Editors Forum (WEF) condemned the attack in which Galizia lost her life
We condemn this shocking attack, which deliberately targeted not just one of our bravest and brightest, but also our very mission as truth seekers.David Callaway, President of the World Editors Forum
(With inputs from Reuters and PTI.)
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