Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed because she ‘stood between rule of law and those who sought to violate it’, says son Matthew 
 
 The son of the murdered Maltese investigative journalist and blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia has described finding parts of his mother’s body around the blazing car in which she died and attacked the island as a “mafia state” run by “crooks”. 
 
 “My mother was assassinated because she stood between the rule of law and those who sought to violate it, like many strong journalists,” Matthew Caruana Galizia, who is also an investigative reporter, wrote in a moving and at times graphic Facebook post. 
 
 “But she was also targeted because she was the only person doing so. This is what happens when the institutions of the state are incapacitated: the last person left standing is often a journalist. Which makes her the first person left dead.” 
 
 
 
 Dutch forensic experts and a team from the FBI were due to arrive in Malta to help police in the EU’s smallest state investigate the killing of Caruana Galizia, who led the Panama Papers investigation into corruption on the island. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest A woman holds a lantern with a picture of murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia during a protest demanding justice. Photograph: Matthew Mirabelli/AFP/Getty Images 
 
 She died on Monday afternoon when her Peugeot was destroyed by an explosive device so powerful it blew the car into a nearby field. “I saw a small explosion coming from the car and I panicked,” said one witness, Frans Sant, who was driving in the opposite direction. 
 
 “A few seconds later, around three to four seconds, there was another, larger explosion. The car continued coming down the hill, skidding at high speed, full of fire. The car missed me by around 10 feet. I tried to help but the fire was too much and the car ended up in the field,” he said. 
 
 Several hundred people demonstrated outside the main law courts in the island’s fortress capital, Valletta, on Tuesday afternoon to demand justice for the 53-year-old journalist, described as a “one-woman WikiLeaks” whose blogs were as fiercely critical of the island’s politicians as they were of its organised crime gangs. 
 
 
 
 “The state did not defend Daphne,” said Andrew Borg-Cardona, a prominent lawyer who works with the journalist’s husband. Michael Briguglio, a leading member of the island’s Green party, said: “This is a political murder because it clearly has a political context and the state did not protect a journalist who was in danger.” 
 
 The European commission said it was horrified by the murder. Asked if it would open a procedure to check if Malta was meeting the EU’s rule of law standards, a spokesman, Margaritis Schinas, said an “outrageous act has happened and what matters now is that justice will be brought. This is what we need to see.” 
 
 
 
 Malta car bomb kills Panama Papers journalist Read more 
 
 Matthew Caruana Galizia said he would never forget “running around the inferno in the field, trying to figure out a way to open the door, the horn of the car still blaring, screaming at two policemen who turned up with a single fire extinguisher to use it”. 
 
 
 
 One of the policemen said: “Sorry, there is nothing we can do,” he wrote. “I looked down and there were my mother’s body parts all around me. I realised they were right, it was hopeless. ‘Who is in the car?’ they asked me. ‘My mother is in the car. She is dead. She is dead because of your incompetence.’” 
 
 Caruana Galizia ran a hugely popular blog relentlessly highlighting cases of alleged high-level corruption among politicians across Malta’s party lines. “There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate,” she wrote in a post published barely half an hour before the bomb exploded. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest The scene of the car bomb that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia. Photograph: Darrin Zammit Lupi/Reuters 
 
 Police said the journalist had just left her home and was on a road near the village of Bidnija in northern Malta when the bomb detonated. Local media said she had reported receiving threats two weeks ago, although police officials denied receiving any complaint. 
 
 Caruana Galizia’s most recent revelations pointed the finger at Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, and two of his closest aides, connecting offshore companies linked to the three men with the sale of Maltese passports and payments from the government of Azerbaijan. 
 
 
 
 Muscat denounced the journalist’s killing on Monday, calling it a “barbaric attack on press freedom”. Muscat, who sued the journalist and won a snap election in June called as a vote of confidence to counter her allegations, said he would “not rest until I see justice done in this case”. 
 
 Play Video 1:19 ‘Her life was not for nothing’ – Vigil held for Panama Papers journalist killed by car bomb – video 
 
 While Caruana Galizia’s targets were mainly the ruling Labour party and its supporters, she had more recently turned her fire on Malta’s opposition whose leader, Adrian Delia, on Tuesday called on the prime minister to resign and the police chief and attorney general to be sacked. 
 
 “The political blame for her death lies squarely in [Muscat’s] lap and he should shoulder responsibility for it,” Delia said. “Everything in this country has a price now, but … You can be sure that someone will have to pay for this death.” 
 
 
 
 Caruana Galizia’s targets ranged from allegedly corrupt politicians to banks facilitating money laundering and the links between Malta’s online gaming industry and the mafia. Her recent work had focused particularly on revelations from the Panama Papers, a huge cache of leaked documents from the leading offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Candles are lit at a vigil to protest against Caruana Galizia’s death. Photograph: Darrin Zammit Lupi/Reuters 
 
 Matthew Caruana Galizia said in his Facebook post that his mother’s killing was “no ordinary murder and it was not tragic. Tragic is someone being run over by a bus. When there is blood and fire all around you, that’s war. We are a people at war against the state and organised crime, which have become indistinguishable.” 
 
 He criticised “that clown of a prime minister”, making statements to parliament “about a journalist he spent over a decade demonising and harassing”, and highlighted a Facebook post by a police sergeant who shortly after the murder wrote: “Everyone gets what they deserve, cow dung! Feeling happy :)” 
 
 Caruana Galizia concluded: “Yes, this is where we are: a mafia state … where you will be blown to pieces for exercising your basic freedoms, only for the people who are supposed to have protected you to instead be celebrating it.” 
 
 He said a “culture of impunity” had been allowed to flourish on the island after the prime minister “filled his office with crooks, then the police with crooks and imbeciles, then the courts with crooks and incompetents. 
 
 “If the institutions were already working, there would be no assassination to investigate – and my brothers and I would still have a mother.” 
 
 
 
 After an application by the dead journalist’s family, the investigating magistrate, Consuelo Scerri Herrera – who had come under criticism from Caruana Galizia in her blog and subsequently sued her – withdrew from the case on Tuesday. 

 Daphne Caruana Galizia, a blogger whose investigations focused on corruption, was described as a ‘one-woman WikiLeaks’ 
 
 The journalist who led the Panama Papers investigation into corruption in Malta was killed on Monday in a car bomb near her home. 
 
 Daphne Caruana Galizia died on Monday afternoon when her car, a Peugeot 108, was destroyed by a powerful explosive device which blew the vehicle into several pieces and threw the debris into a nearby field. 
 
 A bomb silenced Daphne Caruana Galizia. But her investigation lives on Read more 
 
 A blogger whose posts often attracted more readers than the combined circulation of the country’s newspapers, Caruana Galizia was recently described by the Politico website as a “one-woman WikiLeaks”. Her blogs were a thorn in the side of both the establishment and underworld figures that hold sway in Europe’s smallest member state. 
 
 Her most recent revelations pointed the finger at Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, and two of his closest aides, connecting offshore companies linked to the three men with the sale of Maltese passports and payments from the government of Azerbaijan. 
 
 No group or individual has come forward to claim responsibility for the attack. 
 
 
 
 Malta’s president, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, called for calm. “In these moments, when the country is shocked by such a vicious attack, I call on everyone to measure their words, to not pass judgment and to show solidarity,” she said. 
 
 After a fraught general election this summer, commentators had been fearing a return to the political violence that scarred Malta during the 1980s. 
 
 
 
 In a statement, Muscat condemned the “barbaric attack”, saying he had asked police to reach out to other countries’ security services for help identifying the perpetrators. 
 
 Murdered Panama Papers journalist's son attacks Malta's 'crooks' Read more 
 
 “Everyone knows Ms Caruana Galizia was a harsh critic of mine,” said Muscat at a hastily convened press conference, “both politically and personally, but nobody can justify this barbaric act in any way”. 
 
 Muscat announced later in parliament that FBI officers were on their way to Malta to assist with the investigation, following his request for outside help from the US government. 
 
 The Nationalist party leader, Adrian Delia – himself the subject of negative stories by Caruana Galizia – claimed the killing was linked to her reporting. “A political murder took place today,” Delia said in a statement. “What happened today is not an ordinary killing. It is a consequence of the total collapse of the rule of law which has been going on for the past four years.” 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Forensic experts walk in a field after a powerful bomb blew up a car killing investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Photograph: Darrin Zammit Lupi/Reuters 
 
 According to local media reports, Caruana Galizia filed a police report 15 days ago to say that she had been receiving death threats. 
 
 The journalist posted her final blog on her Running Commentary website at 2.35pm on Monday, and the explosion, which occurred near her home, was reported to police just after 3pm. Officers said her body had not yet been identified. According to sources, one of her sons heard the blast from their home and rushed out to the scene. 
 
 Caruana Galizia, who claimed to have no political affiliations, set her sights on a wide range of targets, from banks facilitating money laundering to links between Malta’s online gaming industry and the Mafia. 
 
 What are the Panama Papers? A guide to history's biggest data leak Read more 
 
 Over the last two years, her reporting had largely focused on revelations from the Panama Papers, a cache of 11.5m documents leaked from the internal database of the world’s fourth largest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca. 
 
 
 
 The data was obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with media partners around the world, including the Guardian, by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in Washington. 
 
 
 
 Caruana Galizia’s son, Matthew Caruana Galizia, is a journalist and programmer who works for the ICIJ. 
 
 
 
 Her family have filed a court application demanding a change of inquiring magistrate. Investigations into the case are being led by Consuelo Scerri Herrera, the magistrate who was on duty at the time. But Herrera had come under criticism by Galizia in her blog. The family’s petition states that they “have no trust” in Scerri Herrera and “do not believe that she can conduct a magisterial inquiry through the seriousness and impartiality that is needed in the search for truth”. 
 
 Earlier this year, during Malta’s presidency of the European Union, her revelations caused major concern in Brussels. 
 
 
 
 MEPs openly called for Muscat’s departure amid a growing scandal involving his wife, a Panamanian shell company and alleged payments from the president of Azerbaijan’s daughter. 
 
 Muscat, who has been premier since 2013, went to the polls a year early after his wife was implicated in the scandal. He has always denied any wrongdoing and promised to quit if any evidence emerges of his family having secret offshore bank accounts used to stash kickbacks – as Caruana Galizia had alleged. 
 
 Responding to news of the attack, the German MEP Sven Giegold, a leading figure in the parliament’s Panama Papers inquiry, said he was “shocked and saddened”. 
 
 “It is too early to know the cause of the explosion but we expect to see a thorough investigation,” said Giegold. “Such incidents bring to mind Putin’s Russia, not the European Union. There can be absolutely no tolerance for violence against the press and violations of the freedom of expression in the European Union.” 
 
 Opposition politicians claim rule of law has been under threat since Muscat returned Malta’s Labour party to power in 2013 following a long period in opposition. Four police commissioners have resigned under his leadership. The fifth, Lawrence Cutajar, took up his post in August 2016. 
 
 There have been several car bomb killings in Malta during recent years. While the perpetrators have not been identified, the violence is thought to have been linked to disputes between criminal gangs. None are thought to have been politically motivated. 
 
 Caruana Galizia was 53 and leaves a husband and three sons. 

 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Daphne Caruana Galizia was a pillar of Malta's democracy, her friend says 
 
 The son of an investigative journalist killed in a car bomb attack in Malta has denounced what he called the country's "mafia state". 
 
 Daphne Caruana Galizia, 53, died in an explosion shortly after she left her home in Bidnija, near Mosta, on Monday. 
 
 She was known for her blog accusing top politicians of corruption. 
 
 "My mother was assassinated because she stood between the rule of law and those who sought to violate it," said her son Matthew, who was close to the blast. 
 
 The head of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajini, called for a full investigation. 
 
 "To kill a journalist it is incredible in 2017 with a bomb, it is incredible," he told the BBC. "Why kill a journalist? Probably because the journalist was close to one important point." 
 
 Caruana Galizia: Malta's anti-corruption warrior 
 
 In a lengthy Facebook post published hours after Matthew Caruana Galizia attempted to save his mother from the burning vehicle, he accused Maltese police of incompetence and the government of "impunity". 
 
 "When the institutions of the state are incapacitated, the last person left standing is often a journalist," wrote Mr Caruana Galizia, who is also a journalist. 
 
 He also took aim at Malta's projected image as a liberal Western nation. 
 
 "Yes, this is where we are: a mafia state where you can now change your gender on your ID card (thank God for that!) but where you will be blown to pieces for exercising your basic freedoms," he said. 
 
 Image copyright Reuters Image caption Daphne Caruana Galizia was one of Malta's best-known journalists 
 
 A government spokesman, Kurt Farrugia, denied the government operated with impunity, and promised a "very tough" and thorough investigation. 
 
 Panama Papers 
 
 Daphne Caruana Galizia was a harsh critic of the government and effectively triggered an early election this year by publishing allegations linking Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to the Panama Papers scandal. 
 
 Mr Muscat and his wife denied claims they used secret offshore bank accounts to hide payments from Azerbaijan's ruling family - and he was returned to power in the election, despite the controversy. 
 
 Caruana Galizia's popular blog had also targeted opposition politicians, calling the country's political situation "desperate" in her final post. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Debris was strewn over the road and a nearby field 
 
 After her death, Mr Muscat denounced the killing, calling it an attack "on the freedom of expression in our country." 
 
 In other developments: 
 
 Wikileaks founder Julian Assange offered a €20,000 ($23,500) reward for information leading to a conviction. 
 
 The European Commission condemned the murder, calling her "a pioneer of investigative journalism in Malta". 
 
 The Malta Independent says that a magistrate assigned to the case requested it be taken up by someone else, because she had been the target of Caruana Galizia's writing in the past. 
 
 The Times of Malta reports that a police officer who celebrated Ms Galizia's murder in a post on Facebook has been suspended and is under investigation. 
 
 Skip Twitter post by @AssangeDefence Outraged to hear that Maltese investigative journalist+blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia has been murdered this afternoon not far from her home with a car bomb. I issue a €20k reward for information leading to the conviction of her killers. Her blog: https://t.co/XQCEXBKYn3 pic.twitter.com/ITHlBRzr0J — Assange Defence (@AssangeDefence) October 16, 2017 Report 
 
 In his statement, Matthew Caruana Galizia said he would never forget "running around the inferno in the field, trying to figure out a way to open the door". 
 
 "This was no ordinary murder and it was not tragic. Tragic is someone being run over by a bus. When there is blood and fire all around you, that's war," he wrote. 
 
 He is a developer and data journalist at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. 
 
 The organisation, which won the Pulitzer Prize this year for its work on the Panama Papers, said it was shocked by Caruana Galizia's death, and "deeply concerned about freedom of the press in Malta". 
 
 Police have opened a murder inquiry and Malta has asked for international assistance - including from the FBI - with the investigation.
– "Tragic is someone being run over by a bus. When there is blood and fire all around you, that's war." So writes the son of Daphne Caruana Galizia, a 53-year-old journalist who Politico dubbed a "one-woman WikiLeaks," following her death by car bomb near her home in Malta on Monday, reports the BBC. The Guardian cites local media reports that say one of her three sons heard the blast and came running; son Matthew Caruana Galizia does write of coming upon a scene of horror: "running around the inferno in the field, trying to figure out a way to open the door, the horn of the car still blaring ... I looked down and there were my mother's body parts all around me." Caruana Galizia targeted political corruption via her blog, which the Guardian reports "often attracted more readers than the combined circulation of the country’s newspapers." She was known for poring over the Malta-related content contained in the leaked Panama Papers and had exposed an alleged scheme involving Malta PM Joseph Muscat, passports, and payments from Azerbaijan's government. She published what would be her final blog post roughly 30 minutes before the blast in Mosta. Caruana Galizia had reportedly gone to police 15 days ago over death threats she had been receiving. Muscat called her murder a "barbaric act" and appealed for external help with the investigation; the FBI has agents en route to the country.