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I wrote on the Panama Papers investigation in 2016. You can read on it here and here. My angle was on the connection to Putin and the Russian mob, as well as Hillary Clinton. The whole thing just took a very dark turn in Malta. Daphne Caruana Galizia, 53, had just left her home there when an explosion ripped through her car killing her instantly. There wasn’t a whole lot left. It lifted the car and threw it over a wall into a nearby field.
An assault on freedom of expression
Galizia was an investigative journalist who exposed Malta’s connections to the offshore tax havens through the leaked Panama Papers. Somebody was very intent on shutting her up. Caruana Galizia’s death resulted from a “barbaric attack” that also amounted to an assault on freedom of expression, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said. He described her as “was one of my harshest critics, on a political and personal level” as he denounced her slaying. Galizia surely made a lot of powerful and wealthy enemies exposing the money that ran through those offshore accounts. They are havens to brutal international mob bosses and criminals. It cost Galizia her life.
Galizia was digging through the documents from 2016 that had to do with Malta. The investigative journalist wrote that Muscat’s wife, country’s energy minister and the government’s chief-of-staff, had offshore holdings in Panama to receive money from Azerbaijan. Both Muscat and his wife Michelle denied they had companies in Panama. I don’t think I believe them. Galizia would not have made that allegation lightly being the experienced digger that she was. She had already been receiving death threats and had filed a report with the police. Fat lot of good that did her. She should have taken the threats more seriously.
Car bomb kills journalist behind Panama Papers offshore tax evasion investigation ‘days after she received threats to her safety’ – Mirror Online
A journalist who led the Panama Papers offshore tax evasion expose was killed today when a bomb blew up her car. She had filed a complaint to police a fortnight ago after receiving personal threats to her safety, local media said. Caruana Galizia ran a hugely popular blog relentlessly highlighting cases of alleged corruption, often involving politicians from the Mediterranean island nation.
She made a LOT of enemies
Galizia was a columnist for The Malta Independent, where she wrote twice a week for them since 1996. She also had a blog called “Running Commentary.” A half hour before she was killed, she posted to her blog an item about a libel claim the prime minister’s chief of staff had brought against a former opposition over comments the latter made about corruption. Galizia had been sued for libel over her articles that she wrote on her blog as well. Opposition leader Adrian Delia sued her over a series of stories linking him to a prostitution racket in London. Economy Minister Chris Cardona claimed libel when she wrote that he visited a brothel while in Germany on government business. This woman made a LOT of enemies.
Muscat called the reporter’s killing a “political murder.” He has asked the US and the FBI for assistance in investigating the bombing. Galizia leaves behind her husband and three sons. One son, Matthew, was on the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists team that won the Pulitzer Prize for its work on the Panama Papers scandal. If I were that family, I think I would find a safer place.
On Monday, she had written: “There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. In another entry last year, she wrote: “Malta’s public life is afflicted with dangerously unstable men with no principles or scruples.”
Panama Papers exposed the rich and powerful
The Panama Papers exposed the identities of a whole bunch of rich and powerful people across the globe who have offshore holdings in Panama. Galizia’s family has requested that the Courts of Malta have the magistrate assigned to conduct the inquiry into the journalist’s death replaced. The magistrate is Consuelo Scerri Herrera. According to the family, Herrera “in her personal capacity, had launched judicial procedures against (Caruana Galizia) regarding comments she had written.”
Galizia was also a devout critic of Malta’s Labor Party and government. They are communists although they label themselves socialists… a social-democratic political party. She also went after the opposition Nationalist Party. Her murder drew swift outrage in Malta. “Daphne played a vitally important role in unearthing serious allegations of money laundering and corruption in Malta, including those involving senior figures in the Maltese government,” said Sven Giegold, a Greens member in the European Parliament. Italian L’Espresso, which has also written about alleged corruption linked to Malta, said the reporter’s murder demonstrated that a well-documented expose’ “is perceived as a danger by the powerful and by organized crime.”
A “one-woman Wikileaks”
I have no way of knowing if what Galizia uncovered was fact and damning, but she must have exposed someone for this to happen. It will have a chilling effect on international reporters covering the subject. Reporting and bringing the truth into the open can be a very dangerous game. I am horrified this happened and my prayers and thoughts are with her family. Hopefully, her son and others will continue the investigation. They called Galizia a “one-woman WikiLeaks.” I’m not sure that’s a compliment, as I consider WikiLeaks to be a Russian propaganda outlet, but she was definitely doing important work.
This is a spiteful attack on a citizen and freedom of expression. I will not rest until justice is done. The country deserves justice -JM
— Joseph Muscat (@JosephMuscat_JM) October 16, 2017
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