‘I noticed my mother’s leg on the ground in the field’ - Matthew Caruana Galizia

Matthew Caruana Galizia recounted in court yesterday how he realised that his mother had been killed when he saw a leg on the ground in the field where the blown up vehicle had landed.

Taking the witness stand in the compilation of evidence against three men accused of murdering his mother, Caruana Galizia detailed his last moments with his mother at home before she left the house and before her car was blown up.

Matthew told the court that they had been working at the kitchen table at home when she received a phone call to attend a bank appointment related to the freezing of her accounts and the garnishee order against her.

A garnishee order of €46,000 had been issued against Daphne Caruana Galizia by Economy Minister Chris Cardona after he filed four libel cases against the journalist after she detailed how Cardona had allegedly been seen inside a German brothel.

Cardona filed a request for the removal of the garnishee order days after Caruana Galizia was killed.

Matthew Caruana Galizia detailed how very soon after he heard her mother leave the lane near their house, he heard an explosion. He was the first person on the scene of the crime.

“I saw the smoke rising in the distance and at that point I just sprinted down the lane towards the main road,” the son said. He said that he initially did not know whether it was his mother’s car that had been blasted; but that he then noticed that it was indeed his mother’s vehicle after seeing the hubcaps and number plate strewn in the field where the car landed.

He said that he tried to put his hand into the car but could not, and noted how in that moment there was nobody in the car. It was only when he turned around that he noticed his mother’s leg on the ground, and realised that she hadn’t survived.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered soon after leaving the family home in Bidnija, on 16 October 2017. She had been working at home alongside her son Matthew when she received a phone call to attend a bank appointment.

The case continues on 11 January 2019.