Car bomb kills blogger who accused Malta leaders of corruption

A PROMINENT blogger in Malta, who accused the island’s government of corruption, was killed by a car bomb yesterday.

Daphne Caruana Galizia, 53, an investigative journalist relentlessly highlighted cases of alleged corruption, often involving top politicians.

She was killed near her home in the village of Bidnija in northern Malta. Video showed the burned- out wreck of her car lying in a field several metres from the road. One of her sons reportedly heard the blast and rushed outside.

Earlier this year Miss Galizia accused the Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat of corruption but in a televised statement after the killing he said: ‘I will not rest until I see justice done in this case. Our country deserves justice.’

Calling for national unity, he added: ‘Everyone knows Caruana Galizia was a harsh critic of mine, both politically and personally, but nobody can justify this barbaric act in any way. The only remedy for anyone who felt slandered was through the courts.’

Mr Muscat, who entertained former prime minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie on the island in August, called early elections in June seeking a vote of confidence to counter Galizia’s allegations of corruption.

She alleged documents in a small Malta-based bank showed Mr Muscat’s wife was the owner of a firm in Panama and that large sums of money were moved between the company and bank accounts in Azerbaijan.

Mr Muscat and his wife denied the accusation and sued Miss Galizia for defamation. Mr Muscat was re-elected easily.

Miss Galizia had recently turned her fire on opposition politicians. ‘ There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate,’ she wrote in the final article published on her site yesterday morning.