In a Facebook status publicly shared by Matthew, Andrew and Paul Caruana Galizia this morning, Daphne’s sons officially refused to endorse a €1 million reward reportedly offered for evidence leading to the conviction of their mother’s assassins.

According to the status, the President and Prime Minister of Malta were “unrelenting” in their pressuring “what’s left” of the Caruana Galizia family to endorse the reward, but the murdered journalist’s sons had a different idea as to how the Prime Minister can get their endorsement. 

“We are not interested in justice without change,” the status read. “We are not interested in a criminal conviction only for the people in government who stood to gain from our mother’s murder to turn around and say that justice has been served. Justice, beyond criminal liability, will only be served when everything that our mother fought for – political accountability, integrity in public life and an open and free society – replaces the desperate situation we are in.”

The status went on to blame the government for being interested in only one thing; “its reputation and the need to hide the gaping hole where our institutions once were”. This, the Caruana Galizia sons said, is not their interest, and neither was it their late mother’s. 

“A government and a police force that failed our mother in life will also fail her in death,” the status said, continuing to say that “the people who for as long as we can remember sought to silence our mother cannot now be the ones to deliver justice.”

As for the people who ordered the assassination of Caruana Galizia, her sons said that the police “may or may not find out” who they were, but “as long as those who led the country to this point remain in place, none of it will matter”, with the name of the guilty instead remaining “a footnote in history of how our state was dismantled, taken apart piece by piece and devoured by the criminal and the corrupt.”

The closing statement actually does state how the Prime Minister can get the Caruana Galizias’ endorsement, and their message is simple.

“Show political responsibility and resign. Resign for failing to uphold our fundamental freedoms. Resign for watching over the birth of a society dominated by fear, mistrust, crime and corruption. Resign for working to cripple our mother financially and dehumanise her so brutally and effectively that she no longer felt safe walking down the street.”

“And before resigning,” the status concludes, “he can make his last act in government the replacement of the Police Commissioner and Attorney General with public servants who won’t be afraid to act on evidence against him and those he protects.”

“Then we won’t need a million-euro reward, and our mother wouldn’t have died in vain”.

Yesterday, David Thake (who had previously raised money to help Daphne Caruana Galizia fight a libel case eight months ago) set up a crowd-funded reward fund seeking to raise €1,000,000 for information about her assassination. 

On Monday, Wikileaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange announced that he’s offering a €20,000 award for anyone who has information connected to her murder to step forward.

What do you make of this statement? Let us know in the comments below.

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David Grech Urpani

Lovin Malta's Head of Content, Dave has been in journalism for the better half of the last decade. Prefers Instagram, but has been known to doomscroll on TikTok. Loves chicken, women's clothes and Kanye West (most of the time).