ANI reports that a Maltese investigative journalist who had exposed her island nation’s links with the so-called Panama Papers document leak was killed Monday, October 16, when a bomb destroyed her car as she was driving near her home. This was announced by the Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said.
Daphne Caruana Galizia, 53, had just driven away from her home in Mosta, near the capital, Valletta, when reports said that the bomb exploded, sending wreckage spiraling over a wall and into a field.
Muscat said Caruana Galizia’s death resulted from a “barbaric attack” that was also an assault on freedom of expression. He described her as “one of my harshest critics, on a political and personal level,” as he denounced the attack as “unacceptable.”
Politico named Caruana Galizia one of 28 Europeans who are “shaping, shaking and stirring” Europe. She had exposed that Muscat’s wife, Michelle, as well as Muscat’s energy minister and the government’s chief-of-staff, held companies in Panama by looking into the 2016 document leak. Muscat and his wife deny that they held such companies.
Related: Panama Papers: Database Released, Dozens of Americans Listed
Opposition leader Adrian Delia called the killing a “political murder.” Caruana Galizia had been sued for libel because of articles she wrote on her blog, “Running Commentary,” and she had filed a report with police two weeks ago that she was receiving threats.