Investigation into Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder ‘designed to collapse’, son claims

Investigations into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia have been designed from the outset to be unsuccessful, Matthew Caruana Galizia has said.

The slain journalist’s son also had scathing remarks for the police force's economic crimes unit, which he said had meagre resources at their disposition to investigate money laundering. He implied this was done on purpose to render the unit ineffective, accusing its head of being "extremely corrupt, cowardly and complicit".

Matthew Caruana Galizia was speaking at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia on Saturday, where he also took questions from the floor.

Asked by MaltaToday whether he believed the Maltese police would refrain from prosecuting against the mastermind of his mother's murder if they had the proof, Caruana Galizia said the issue was whether the prosecution would actually gather enough evidence to identify a mastermind.

“The question on prosecution is that it would be difficult for there not to be a prosecution of the masterminds if evidence is brought up which is really incriminating and difficult to deny. The question is whether it will get to that point,” Caruana Galizia said.

He noted that it was only the police who could conduct a criminal investigation in Malta, and that these operated within a judicial system which was weak.

“Europol doesn’t have any kind of judicial authority, it can’t do its own investigations. And there is no kind of international body that can do any investigation. Any magistrate in Malta depends on the police to hold a criminal inquest - it’s entirely up to the police. The problem is that Malta’s judicial system is extremely weak by design, and it’s kept weak.”

So, the question, again, is whether the police will seek to bring up the evidence that identifies who the masterminds are, he added.

The police have so far charged three men with Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder and the compilation of evidence has been going on for more than a year. However, the person or persons who commissioned the henious crime are still at large.

Police investigations into the murder have not stopped and a magisterial inquiry remains open.

Malta like Russia

Matthew Caruana Galizia compared Malta to Russia under President Vladimir Putin when it came to investigations on the murders of the journalists Anna Politkovskaya in 2006 and Boris Nemtsov in 2015.

“The investigations [in Malta] are started, but are designed to collapse and be ineffective. In the same way that the investigations into the murders of Anna Politkovskaya and Boris Nemtsov are designed from the start by Putin’s government to be ineffective.”

“If you look at the investigation into my mother's murder - which concerns the assassination [of a journalist] in Europe with a car bomb after she was reporting on corruption at the highest level of government - there are one full-time and maybe another part-time detective who are working on the case,” he emphasised.

Matthew Caruana Galizia said it was impossible for the police to investigate a crime of this magnitude with so little resources.

“The economic crimes unit of Malta’s police is one of the most corrupt bodies in our country. It’s run by a policeman who is extremely corrupt and is one of the ‘three Cs’ - [corrupt], cowardly and complicit.”

Caruana Galizia added that an investigation into his mother’s murder that depended on people who were not even prosecuting the persons she wrote about in her blog was always bound to be ineffective.

“There is never going to be a serious prosecution without changes to Malta’s system and without prosecutions of people she wrote about,” he added.