Legal opinion contains ‘false allegations, baseless insinuations’ – government

The government yesterday said that a legal opinion issued by a UK law firm on behalf of the Caruana Galizia family, which called for a full public inquiry into the journalist’s murder, included “false allegations, baseless insinuations, and incorrect information.”

Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated in a car bomb attack on 16 October 2017. Last month, her family said that, should the call for a public in- quiry be refused by the Maltese government, it would be prepared to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The Office of the Prime Minister had initially told this newspaper that it would “take time to consider the Opinion properly and act accordingly.” When contacted on Friday, a spokesperson for Joseph Muscat said “we have nothing to add to our previous communi- cation on the matter.”

But in a statement issued yesterday, the government, through the Attorney General, reacted to the letter sent to the Maltese High Commission in London on 9 August by British legal company Bhatt Murphy. The law firm had written that the way in which the murder investigation was being conducted was breaching the European Convention of Human Rights.

The government said yesterday that it assumed its responsibilities as dictated by the European Convention of Human Rights” with outright seriousness.”

It also expressed its disappointment at the fact that the legal opinion issued by the law firm “included a number of false allegations, baseless insinuations, and incorrect information.”

In its letter, the Maltese Government stressed that the magistrate who is leading the inquiry on the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia “has absolute liberty to do and investigate all that is necessary without fear or favour in the carrying out of his duty.”

The government said the judiciary in Malta is independent and this investigation “has been given the most resources in Malta’s law-enforcing history.”

Three suspects have already been brought to court accused of committing this crime and investigations as to who else was involved are ongoing, it said.

The statement read that the police force and the security services “are dedicating significant resources to this case, however, one cannot expect these authorities to continously comment in public about their work.”

The Maltese authorities are also collaborating closely with international authorities and, recently, Europol’s Executive Director publicly clarified a statement issued by her predecessor about international cooperation in this investigation.

The government also said it was “disappointed” with the fact that “these British lawyers consider it to be the enemy of the Caruana Galizia family.”

“The government has simply worked diligently with international partners in the law enforcement sector to ensure those responsible for this crime face justice,” the statement said.

“It is rather natural to have an element of frustration at the fact that the investigation is taking its time. However, this is not abnormal in complicated investigations such as this,” the government said, adding that it was reserving its right to provide another reply to the letter of the British lawyers.

It said it was sending this interim reaction only because the lawyers insisted on having an immediate answer in August.