Banners Demanding Daphne’s Laptop Pop Up Around Malta Moments After Call From Prime Minister’s Office
A few hours after the Prime Minister’s communications aide Glenn Bedingfield called for banners implying that the family of assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia is hiding her laptop, such banners appeared in key positions around Malta.
“The Civil Society Network as they call themselves, have been vociferous ever since Daphne was killed on that fateful day,” Bedingfield, a Labour MP, said on his blog last night. “I wish they would use their muscle and influence over her family and make them hand over the laptop which is key to the investigation. If they really want justice to prevail, why are they keeping important evidence from the investigators? Do they really want this case to be solved? Until all the evidence is handed in and the laptop or laptops in question come out of hiding, they will not be taken seriously. If they really want this case to be solved, they should come clean. Maybe we will start seeing some banners asking ‘Where is that laptop?”
Neville Gafa, another of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s aides, was one of the first people to upload a photo of the banner near a Santa Venera roundabout on Facebook. Gafa captioned the photo with the words “The situation is desperate” – the last words Caruana Galizia wrote on her blog before she was blown up last October. OPM communications aide Josef Caruana also shared the photos on his Facebook page.
The Labour Party’s media station ONE News then uploaded photos of the banners and wrote that Caruana Galizia’s laptop could contain crucial information that would lead the police towards the people who masterminded her assassination.
A spokesperson for Muscat told Lovin Malta that the government had nothing to do with the banners and they will be removed if it turns out they had been illegally erected.
Video footage sent to Lovin Malta shows that at least one of the banners – erected near Portes des Bombes – has already been pulled down.
In the wake of Caruana Galizia’s murder, there were conflicting reports in the press over whether or not the police had managed to retrieve her laptop or not.
However, Aldin Cardona, who was entrusted by the inquiring magistrate to analyse electronic equipment from Caruana Galizia’s house, last week confirmed in court that the police only have in their possession an old laptop that the journalist had last used back in 2015. Cardona said that Caruana Galizia’s son Matthew had told police his mother used to work from a tablet.
In an earlier sitting, lead inspector Kurt Zahra confirmed that police were unable to find traces of a laptop or a tablet at the scene of the explosion and that Caruana Galizia’s son Matthew didn’t know whether or not his mother had taken it out with her.
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