Friends mourn Malta journalist

VALLETTA: Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat described murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia on Wednesday as "his biggest adversary" but vowed to bring her killers to justice as emotional commemorations for the slain mother continued into a third day.

Friends of Caruana Galizia’s three sons left flowers and staged a vigil at the Valletta monument to the Great Siege of 1565, opposite the Courts of Justice, a venue the journalist knew well owing to a blog whose hard-hitting content led to several legal tussles.

Some friends reiterated her eldest son Matthew’s charge that Malta’s centre-left government was complicit in the death of the widely-read blogger whose reports of high-level corruption prompted Muscat into an early general election in June, which he won.

"Everything is being swept under the carpet, issue after issue. It’s reached this point where it’s blatantly obvious," said one, Nigel Anastasi, 30, a graphic designer. Among the messages written on bouquets of flowers was one thanking the reporter for "speaking out on behalf of those who want to build a fairer world."

Another said: "Our lives end the day we become silent about things that matter. Your death will not be in vain." One woman who came to lay flowers, Simone Vella Lenicker, 42, an architect, told AFP: "It has affected everyone. I feel like a piece of me died inside -- the urge to speak out, make my voice heard and comment on things that are happening.