Daphne Galizia’s brutal killing and Malta’s dark secret

Malta is, by and large, a safe country where people don’t lock their doors. This month’s car bombing, in which Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered, has forced me to reconsider the benign opinion of the island I know and love. The dark echoes of Belfast during the Troubles, where personal and political opponents often met a violent end are difficult to ignore. Galizia’s assassination has worrying echoes for the whole of Europe.

No one can yet say who killed Galizia, but there is little doubt that her fearless journalism made her many enemies over the years. Malta’s Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat, has vowed to hunt down those responsible. Some have pointed to a political conspiracy, suggesting Galizia’s allegations of politicians’ complicity in the offshore Panama accounts scandal and other illegal activities led to her demise. This seems doubtful. The act was too blatant and it makes little sense for a ruling party to be involved when Malta has just had a general election; why silence a critic after the event? Another explanation harks back to Murder in the Cathedral and the aside uttered by the king in anger, ‘Who will rid me of this turbulent priest’.