The journalist had faced death threats and libel suits for years. \u201cOur mother\u2019s death warrant could have been signed two years ago,\u201d Matthew Caruana Galizia, one of Daphne\u2019s three sons, and himself a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, said here on a recent afternoon. He was in Strasbourg to speak before lawmakers at the Council of Europe, the continent\u2019s watchdog for human rights and the rule of law. \u201cIt has been like watching her assassination unfold in slow motion,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Long before she began investigating the Maltese leads unearthed in the Panama Papers<\/a>, Caruana Galizia\u2019s one-woman blog, \u201cRunning Commentary,\u201d drove the news cycle in the EU\u2019s smallest member state. She had reported on money laundering, the Italian mafia, and a controversial program begun in 2014 that allows wealthy foreigners to purchase Maltese passports<\/a>; that program has effectively turned the country into a backdoor to Europe, especially for wealthy Russians. Damning scoops<\/a> tied the prime minister\u2019s wife, an aide, and one of his ministers to suspicious financial transactions through a Maltese bank to a Panamanian shell company; another scoop alleged that the aide had personally profited from the sale of Maltese passports. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat called a snap election last summer following the report about his wife\u2014and won. (Muscat has publicly said that he would resign if the allegations were proven true, and he and his associates deny all wrongdoing.)<\/p>\n<\/section>\n Hers was the fifth<\/a> death by car bomb in Malta in the past few years, and none of the other cases have been solved. It may take time to solve her murder, but the question is whether Malta\u2019s institutions have the political will to try. The accused, who are charged with detonating the bomb from afar, are most likely foot soldiers in a much bigger game. Malta\u2019s ability to solve Caruana Galizia\u2019s murder is implicitly linked to its ability to investigate the allegations she had been reporting on. For years, she had probed corruption and foot-dragging in the same institutions now charged with investigating her death.<\/p>\n The case points to deeper structural flaws in the rule of law in Malta. The country may be a blip on the map, an outcropping of rock between Sicily and Libya, with a mere 400,000 inhabitants. But it is a member of the European Union, and its passport sales to wealthy individuals, its sometimes cavalier awarding of banking licenses and its monitoring of money laundering\u2014to say nothing of its liberal granting of visas<\/a> from its consulate in Algeria, which allow recipients visa-free travel inside Europe\u2019s Schengen area\u2014suggest that Malta has become Europe\u2019s soft underbelly. The murder of a journalist in Europe, at a time when democratic institutions face severe tests worldwide, risk making Malta the weak point that could threaten the entire bloc.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n In announcing the arrests<\/a> in december<\/span>, Muscat called the murder \u201ca barbaric act\u201d and said Malta \u201cwill leave no stone unturned to get this case solved.\u201d He added, \u201cI am committed to do so more than ever.\u201d But more than three months after the journalist\u2019s death, little has come to light. Her family and some European lawmakers are so concerned about this that, at the hearing last month where the journalist\u2019s sons testified, MPs on the Council of Europe\u2019s parliamentary assembly took an unprecedented step: calling for an independent rapporteur to monitor the investigation. This person would have a mandate to interview officials in Malta and beyond, to hold hearings in Strasbourg and Paris, and to publish a report. The recommendations would be non-binding, but would bring international attention to the case.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the first time the Council of Europe has ever suggested appointing a rapporteur for an investigation inside an EU member state, and a sign of how concerned it is about rule of law in Malta. The motion calling for the appointment, which is expected to be approved, says the international community has a responsibility to ensure an investigation \u201cwithout political interference,\u201d and it called for \u201can examination of the full context of the assassination, including institutional failures and the systematic targeting of Caruana Galizia for her work.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n The two other times the Council of Europe has appointed a special rapporteur were both in Russia: for the investigation into the 2015 murder of Boris Nemtsov, the Russian opposition leader, and into the 2009 death in pre-trial detention of Sergei Magnitsky, an auditor who had discovered what he said was fraud by Russian officials.<\/p>\n This form of attention toward Malta is not the first sign of Europe\u2019s concern about the country. Last month, members of the European Parliament released a damning report in which they cited \u201cserious concerns\u201d about the country\u2019s legal system and separation of powers, as well as its \u201cweak implementation of anti-money laundering legislation.\u201d Those weaknesses could cause problems far beyond little Malta.<\/p>\n Given Malta\u2019s EU membership, money in Maltese banks can flow freely throughout the European banking system. And if Malta is lax on implementing anti-money laundering norms, the whole continent could be affected. In November, Frans Timmermans, the executive vice president of the European Commission, said<\/a> he had \u201cno general concerns\u201d about Malta\u2019s application of anti-money laundering procedures. But that may change. Last weekend The Guardian<\/em>reported<\/a> that Europe\u2019s banking watchdog, the European Banking Authority, had opened a \u201cpreliminary inquiry\u201d into the Maltese bank that Caruana Galizia had reported held accounts for Russian clients, as well as accounts tied to the Maltese prime minister\u2019s wife and two advisers. (Last month, a former European Commissioner from Malta also confirmed<\/a> he had held an account there.)<\/p>\n<\/section>\n The report also shows the challenges Europe faces in keeping its own member states in line. When I talked to her in Brussels last month, Sophie In\u2019t\u2019veld, a member of the European Parliament (MEP) from the Netherlands who was on the committee that visited Malta and wrote the report, conceded Europe was still finding its way when it came to ensuring that member states were upholding the rule of law, and that Poland was currently the biggest test case. \u201cWe\u2019re inventing the mechanisms as we go along,\u201d she told me.<\/p>\n Ana Gomes, an MEP from Portugal and one of the authors of the report, said the Malta trip had been dispiriting. \u201cWho controls whom?\u201d Gomes wondered out loud to me, regarding the Maltese government and the foreign investors who were buying Maltese passports and moving money to and through Malta. \u201cIs the prime minister controlling them, or are they controlling the prime minister?\u201d I pointed out that the Maltese government had won the snap elections with a secure majority. \u201cIt\u2019s not through elections that you can clear corruption,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Maltese officials reject this. \u201cThe picture you have painted is not the real picture of Malta,\u201d Malta\u2019s justice minister, Owen Bonnici, said of the report during the parliamentary hearing. As to the specific allegations raised by Caruana Galizia\u2019s reporting, Kurt Farrugia, a spokesman for the Maltese government, wrote in an email that the prime minister maintains that \u201cif any proof or truth is found in the allegations against him or his wife he would resign immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n The broader investigation, though, faces some hurdles. The first magistrate assigned to investigate the journalist\u2019s murder recused herself, at the family\u2019s request, as she had once brought a criminal defamation case against Caruana Galizia. The journalist had also investigated the officer currently leading the investigation, and he sits on the board of a government body that Caruana Galizia had alleged was suppressing reports of money-laundering by government officials.<\/p>\n At the end of the hearing in Strasbourg, a Maltese member Parliament from the governing Labor Party, Etienne Grech, had asked a question to Caruana Galizia\u2019s sons: \u201cDid your mother ever encounter any difficulties with freedom of expression during the time that she wrote?\u201d he asked, adding that Caruana Galizia had reported on the opposition leader, too. Matthew Caruana Galizia took the microphone. \u201cYour question is totally outrageous,\u201d he said. \u201cShe was killed for what she wrote for God\u2019s sake. How can you possibly say that she was free to express herself?\u201d The air in the room grew tense. Grech said that \u201ca tragedy had occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a tragedy,\u201d Matthew said. \u201cIt\u2019s a crime.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n