MALTA STATE TO BLAME FOR REPORTER'S DEATH

VALLETTA The Maltese state must bear responsibility for the murder of anticorruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia because it created a “culture of impunity” that made the killing possible, an independent inquiry has found.

Caruana Galizia, who was widely known in Malta for reporting on allegations of high-level graft, was killed by a bomb planted beneath her car as she drove home on Oct. 16, 2017.

Her assassination caused a political firestorm in Malta and led to the resignation of the prime minister, Joseph Muscat, after a business person with close ties to his government was charged with organizing the murder in 2020.

Muscat himself has never been accused of wrongdoing. But the public inquiry concluded that his government had presided over a “collapse in the rule of law” that directly contributed to the murder.

“The state should shoulder responsibility for the assassination,” said the inquiry report published Thursday.

“It created an atmosphere of impunity, generated from the highest echelons of the administration inside Castille (the prime minister's office), the tentacles of which then spread to other institutions, such as the police and regulatory authorities, leading to a collapse in the rule of law.”

Yorgen Fenech, the business person suspected of masterminding the murder, was arrested in 2020 and is still awaiting trial. He denies all charges.

Vince Muscat, no relation to the former prime minister, admitted to being one of the hit men and pleaded guilty. He received a reduced 15-year sentence in exchange for providing evidence to the police.