There are ways and means to find out who ordered the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has said. 

“Without drawing comparisons with other countries, I am very pleased that we brought in foreign experts right from the get-go,” Muscat told presenter Andrew Azzopardi in an interview that was published in a book to commemorate a decade since the Prime Minister’s appointment as leader of the Labour Party. 

“They cooperated very well with the Maltese police and three men have been charged in court as a result. I believe we can also find out who ordered the murder, either through the ongoing judicial process or through other means.” 

Three men – George Degiorgio (Iċ-Ċiniż), his brother Alfred (Il-Fulu) and Vincent Muscat (Il-Koħħu) – were charged last December with the car bomb assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. 

The police have presented a trove of evidence against the three men, including phone data pinning Alfred Degiorgio and Vince Muscat in Bidnija at the time of the murder and George Degiorgio on a boat in the Grand Harbour. Police believe that the former two men had acted as lookouts and had messaged George Degiorgio when they spotted Caruana Galizia approaching her car. Degiorgio then sent a SMS to a device that had been attached to a powerful bomb placed under Caruana Galizia’s car, triggering it and killing the journalist. 

However, investigations into who was behind the murder are being stymied as all three men are refusing to speak to the police. 

Joseph Muscat has previously dismissed as “baseless speculation” any suggestion the government could offer a presidential pardon to the three suspects on condition that they reveal who ordered the murder.

In his interview, Muscat said he “always feared” that something could happen to Daphne Caruana Galizia, but expected this to be on the lines of someone passing her an unnecessary comment. 

“Let’s be honest, she wasn’t an easy person to deal with, although this is no way excuses what happened to her,” the Prime Minister said. “For example, if we had given her a police escort, she would have probably argued that someone was putting police at her front door to harm her work or to spy on her.”

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Tim Diacono

Tim is interested in the rapid evolution of human society and is passionate about justice, human rights and cutting-edge political debates. You can follow him on Instagram or Twitter/X at @timdiacono or reach out to him at [email protected]