Daphne Anne Caruana Galizia (; 26 August 1964 – 16 October 2017) was a Maltese writer, journalist, blogger and anti-corruption activist who reported on political events in Malta. She was known internationally for her investigation of the Panama Papers and her subsequent assassination by a car bomb.
Caruana Galizia focused on investigative journalism, reporting on political corruption, nepotism, patronage, and allegations of money laundering, links between Malta's online gambling industry and organized crime, Malta's citizenship-by-investment scheme, and payments from the government of Azerbaijan. Her national and international reputation was built on her regular reporting of misconduct by Maltese politicians and politically exposed persons.
Despite intimidation and threats, libel suits and other lawsuits, Caruana Galizia continued to publish articles for decades. She was arrested by the Malta Police Force on two occasions. Caruana Galizia's investigations were published via her personal blog Running Commentary, which she set up in 2008. She was a regular columnist with The Sunday Times of Malta and later The Malta Independent. Her blog consisted of investigative reporting and commentary, some of which was regarded as personal attacks on individuals, leading to a series of legal battles. In 2016 and 2017, she revealed controversially sensitive information and allegations relating to a number of Maltese politicians and the Panama Papers scandal.
On 16 October 2017, Caruana Galizia was assassinated nearby her home when a car bomb was detonated inside her vehicle, attracting widespread local and international condemnation of the attack. In December 2017, three men were arrested in connection with the car bomb attack. Police arrested Yorgen Fenech, the owner of the Dubai-based company 17 Black, on his yacht on 20 November 2019 in connection with her murder. Fenech is currently facing criminal charges in connection with 17 Black, following the closure of a magisterial inquiry into plans for 17 Black to pay millions to government figures identified in the Panama Papers via secret offshore structures.
In April 2018, an international consortium of 45 journalists published The Daphne Project, a collaboration to complete Caruana Galizia's investigative work. The GUE/NGL Award for Journalists, Whistleblowers & Defenders of the Right to Information was established in 2018 in honour of Galizia.
Early life and education Daphne Anne Vella was born on 26 August 1964 in Sliema, Malta (then under British colonial rule). She was the eldest of four daughters born to the businessman Michael Alfred Vella and his wife Rose Marie Vella (née Mamo). She was educated at St Dorothy's Convent (Mdina) and St Aloysius' College, Birkirkara. She attended the University of Malta as a mature student and took a BA (Hons) in archaeology with a minor in anthropology in 1997, featuring on the Dean's List in 1996.
Caruana Galizia was exposed to politics in her late teens, having been arrested when she was 18 years old following participation in anti-government protests. The policeman who arrested her, Angelo Farrugia, went on to become the Speaker of the Parliament of Malta.
In 1985, she married the lawyer Peter Caruana Galizia, a grandson of John Caruana and a great-grandson of E. L. Galizia and A.A. Caruana. The couple had three sons, Matthew, Andrew and Paul. Matthew was an employee of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The family left Sliema in 1990, moving to Bidnija, a hamlet in the limits of Mosta.
Career Caruana Galizia was employed by The Sunday Times of Malta as a news reporter in 1987, becoming a regular columnist from 1990 to 1992 and again from 1993 to 1996. She was an associate editor of The Malta Independent in 1992, and remained a columnist with that newspaper and The Malta Independent on Sunday for the rest of her career. Additionally, she worked in media and public relations consultancies. Caruana Galizia was also the founding editor of Taste and Flair, monthly lifestyle magazines which were distributed along with The Malta Independent on Sunday. The publications were merged into a single magazine called Taste&Flair in July 2014, and Caruana Galizia remained the editor until her death. Taste&Flair is now published by The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation.
In March 2008, she began a blog entitled Running Commentary, which included investigative reporting and commentary on current affairs and public figures. The blog was one of the most popular websites in Malta, regularly attracting over 400,000 views – more than the combined circulation of the country's newspapers.
Caruana Galizia was intimidated for her work and opinions. The front door of her house was set on fire in 1996. The family dog had its throat slit and was laid across her doorstep. Years later, the neighbour's car was burned, possibly in a misdirected attack. There was a further incident in 2006, when the house was set on fire while the family was asleep inside. After Caruana Galizia started blogging, her terrier Zulu was poisoned, and her collie Rufus was put down after being found shot. According to Matthew Caruana Galizia, threats were almost a daily occurrence. These took the form of phone calls, letters, notes pinned to the front door, text messages, emails, and comments on her blog.
Caruana Galizia was arrested on 8 March 2013 for breaking the political silence on the day before the 2013 general election, after posting videos mocking Joseph Muscat. She was questioned by the police before being released after a few hours. In November 2010, after commenting about the conservation of the Villa Guardamangia (the early-marriage home of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip of Great Britain), Caruana Galizia was described by The Daily Telegraph as the leading commentator in Malta. Other major stories and controversies centered around Panama Papers revelations, and allegations that Christian Cardona had visited a brothel during an official government visit to Germany in January 2017.
In 2016, Caruana Galizia questioned how British millionaire Paul Golding acquired Palazzo Nasciaro in Naxxar, and from mid-2017 Caruana Galizia became a harsh critic of the new Nationalist opposition leader Adrian Delia, over claims that he had laundered money for a company involved in a prostitution ring in Soho.
Panama Papers On 22 February 2016, Caruana Galizia's Running Commentary blog reported that Maltese government minister Konrad Mizzi had connections with Panama and New Zealand. This compelled the minister to reveal the existence of a New Zealand-registered trust two days later, which he claimed was set up to manage his family's assets. On 25 February, Caruana Galizia revealed that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's chief of staff Keith Schembri owned a similar trust in New Zealand, which in turn held a Panama company.
The April 2016 Panama Papers leak confirmed that Mizzi owned the Panama company Hearnville Inc., and that Mizzi and Schembri had also started another company, Tillgate Inc. The companies were co-owned by the Orion Trust New Zealand Limited, the same trustees of Mizzi and Schembri's New Zealand trusts, Rotorua and Haast respectively. As the first person to break news of Mizzi's and Schembri's involvement in Panama, she was subsequently named by Politico as one of "28 people who are shaping, shaking and stirring Europe". The publication described her as a "one-woman WikiLeaks, crusading against untransparency and corruption in Malta".
In 2017, she alleged that Egrant, another Panama company, was owned by Michelle Muscat, wife of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. Muscat claimed that the allegations were the reason he called the June 2017 general elections almost a year early, a vote which saw his Labour Party return to power. Caruana Galizia pointed out that an early election had already been planned.
The title of her last blog post before she was killed read, "That crook Schembri was in court today, pleading that he is not a crook", ending with the line "there are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate."
On 20 November 2019, police arrested Yorgen Fenech, owner of the Dubai-based company 17 Black, on his yacht. This company had been featured in the journalist's investigative work on the Panama Papers in relation to Schembri and Mizzi, who – along with cabinet member Chris Cardona – resigned their government posts on 26 November. Schembri was arrested, then released two days later, which brought many people into the streets through the weekend in the capital Valletta. From 20 November, crowds had begun calling on Muscat to resign (see 2019 Maltese protests) after he said he might pardon the "middleman" in the murder case.
Libel and criminal defamation cases In 2010, Caruana Galizia used her blog to criticise Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera, who, together with Herrera's live-in partner, Labour government consultant Robert Musumeci, went on to file a criminal complaint with the police, forcing them to prosecute Caruana Galizia in the criminal courts. The case was withdrawn in November 2011.
In May 2017, Pilatus Bank's owner and chairman, Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, sued Daphne Caruana Galizia in an Arizona court in his own name and in the name of Pilatus Bank. The case was for US$40 million in damages. Caruana Galizia was never notified about it, and it was withdrawn within hours of her death.
Pilatus Bank had written to every single non-government-aligned media outlet in Malta throughout the course of 2017, threatening to sue them, but had only gone through with the threat in Daphne Caruana Galizia's case as the other media outlets conceded to changes to their online content. One media outlet reported that threatening letters had been sent just 12 hours before Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed.
In February 2017, a legal fund was crowdfunded to cover four precautionary warrants – freezing Caruana Galizia's assets to the tune of €50,000 – for the maximum libel damages possible at law. These warrants had been instituted by the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and Minister for the Economy, Cardona, and his EU presidency policy officer, Joseph Gerada.
At the time of her death, Daphne Caruana Galizia was facing 48 libel suits.
Assassination
On 16 October 2017, a few moments after Caruana Galizia left her home in Bidnija, a car bomb placed in her leased Peugeot 108 exploded. A direct witness driving the opposite way reported to the court a double explosion. The first, smaller, may have knocked down Caruana for a brief moment resulting in visible shaky driving. She then screamed while sparks appeared under her car and a second, more powerful blast engulfed the car, killing her instantly. The blast occurred on Triq il-Bidnija (Bidnija Road), and left the vehicle scattered in several pieces across nearby fields.
Caruana Galizia was in the driver's seat at the time, when the blast threw the car into an adjacent field where her bodily remains were found by her son Matthew. He wrote on Facebook, "I looked down and there were my mother's body parts all around me". This marked the sixth car-bombing in Malta since the beginning of 2016, and the fourth fatality. Caruana Galizia's home had not been under police guard since 2010, except during elections. According to police sources, her protection was further weakened after Muscat, a subject of her investigations, was returned to power in 2013.
The power to set up a public inquiry into whether the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia could have been prevented rested with the then-Maltese Prime Minister, Muscat. Muscat, however, did not immediately set up a public inquiry, and a formal request by Caruana Galizia's heirs was presented by letter to Muscat on 9 August 2018, based on the legal opinion of Doughty Street Chambers and Bhatt Murphy Solicitors.
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