Death of Maltese journalist could be linked to fuel-smuggling network
ITALY - There are possible links between the murder of the investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed by a car bomb in Malta last week, and an Italian investigation into an illicit fuel-smuggling network, according to a senior Italian prosecutor.
Carmelo Zuccaro, a chief prosecutor in Sicily who is leading the fuel-smuggling inquiry, told the Guardian he “could not exclude” the possibility that some of the men targeted in his investigation which spans Libya, Malta, and Italy, and allegedly involves an organised crime network in Sicily could be behind Caruana Galizia’s murder. “[She] worked in the past on articles about the fuel trafficking between Libya and Malta”, Zuccaro said, adding that some of the people involved in his inquiry had been named by her in several articles. While the investigation into the multimillioneuro fuel-smuggling ring has been under way for months, Italian authorities made a series of arrests days after Caruana Galizia’s murder. None of those arrested have been formally accused of any involvement in the journalist’s death. Darren Debono, a Maltese, was arrested on the Italian island of Lampedusa on Friday and charged with being part of the illegal Malta-based network, which allegedly has ties to Libyan militia leaders and has smuggled tens of millions of euro in fuel from Libya to markets in Europe.
Debono has not been accused of any crimes in connection with the journalist’s murder. It is not clear how long he was in Lampedusa before his arrest or how he got there. Police in Malta said they were “investigating all possible avenues” related to the journalist’s killing and had made contact with their counterparts in Italy immediately after Debono’s arrest. Debono, a former Malta football player, was among the subjects of Caruana Galizia’s journalism. In blogposts she published in February 2016, she said Debono was a restaurant owner and fisherman who did “a lot of ‘business’ with Libya.” She also claimed to have received an email threat from a relative of Debono who was allegedly upset by some of her earlier work on the family’s activities. (Theguardian.com)