Real Journalism Gets You Killed - The Murder of Panama Papers Journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia
Murder in Malta
The journalist who led the Panama Papers investigation into corruption in Malta was killed on Monday in a car bomb near her home.
Daphne Caruana Galizia died on Monday afternoon when her car, a Peugeot 108, was destroyed by a powerful explosive device which blew the vehicle into several pieces and threw the debris into a nearby field.
Daphne Caruana Galizia, 53, was reportedly killed when the car she was driving exploded shortly after she left her home in Bidnija, near Mosta.
Local media say one of her sons heard the blast and rushed outside.
In recent weeks, Galazia had been receiving death threats.
At the time of posting, no one has claimed responsibility for the bombing.
Daphne Caruana Galizia aka The "One-Woman Wikileaks"
Daphne is credited with taking the lead in the Panama Papers investigation in Malta that exposed a nefarious web of money laundering and shell companies that extended across the globe and implicated high ranking politicians, businessmen, law firms, and corporations.
The Panama Papers caused an international stir as the off shoring, money laundering and tax evasion practices of the rich and powerful from a wide range of countries were exposed to the general public.
The International Consortium of Independent Journalists (ICIJ) won a Pulitzer Prize for their work in releasing and investigating the Panama Papers and the Offshore Leaks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=18&v=fiu-vWLTqWs
The leaks by the ICIJ showed how many in the political class who publicly positioned themselves as crusaders as reformers against and as harsh critics of offshore tax havens were, in fact, themselves implicated in the very same activities. Chinese president Xi Jingping, British PM David Cameron, Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko are just a few examples.
ICIJ searchable database
Daphne Galizia's son, Matthew, also works for the ICIJ as a data-journalist and engineer.
Daphne's Blog - https://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/
Daphne is described by The Guardian as a tour de force as an investigative blogger:
A blogger whose posts often attracted more readers than the combined circulation of the country’s newspapers, Caruana Galizia was recently described by the Politico website as a “one-woman WikiLeaks”. Her blogs were a thorn in the side of both the establishment and underworld figures that hold sway in Europe’s smallest member state.
Galizia is said to of had no political affiliations and has been a harsh critic of political and financial corruption involving the Maltese political establishment, the banking sector, individuals and corporations hiding wealth in offshore accounts and even her country's gaming industry.
The blogger's latest work focused largely on the Prime Minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat, and several member of his inner circle. Galazia had tied Muscat and his aides to offshore companies, payments from the Azerbajani government and the purchase of Maltese passports.
Prime Minister Muscat has roundly condemned the brutal murder stating:
“Everyone knows Ms Caruana Galizia was a harsh critic of mine, both politically and personally, but nobody can justify this barbaric act in any way”
Reaction to the Targeted Killing
Followers of Galazia's work have reacted with outrage and indignation of the deplorable killing of the respected journalist, blogger and citizen. Her murder shows all the signs of being politically motivated as her investigative work as garnered a significant amount of enemies and detractors.
Across the internet people have already begun to speculate as to who may be behind the brutal attack. The names of prominent figures such as the Clintons, Vladimir Putin, the PM of Malta and slew of individuals implicated in the Panama Papers have already started to circulate.
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Wikileaks
Wikileaks Chief Editor, Julian Assange, has posted a 20, 000 Euro reward for information related to the political assassination.
The murder occurred not long after Assange hinted at a new release. In the last 24 hours, Julian Assange uncharacteristically tweeted several personal opinions in regards to failed US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Assange described Clinton as "Dark, Cold and Creepy".
In addition, Assange released a hash that has some speculating that the publisher drop a new leak in the days to come. There's talk of passkeys to the encrypted Insurance files from the last year and their contents may be released. Speculation has been rampant as to what the files contain.
Could they contain Clinton's unreleased and unredacted emails?
Is this a message to leakers and would be leakers?
Related Post - see @fortified's latest -
https://steemit.com/wikileaks/@fortified/more-clinton-dnc-emails-or-something-big-is-about-to-go-down
Vigil for Daphne
Malta is a fairly small place with a tradition of respect of the feminine principle going back to ancient times. It is typical that a female would be killed in this way in such a place - heartlessness has a symbolism to it, whether deliberate or not.
We shall see whether the investigation reveals useful data of the details of the crime or just details that show that the investigation has no intention of succeeding - which is it's own evidence. :/
upvoted and resteemed!
Pardon?? Typical? Are you referring to the many ritual sacrifices of women in the nights of full moon of the Maltese island? Seriously. In fact every time that I go visiting my wife's family in Malta I hear explosions. Please, in front of this horror let's try to not be stereotypical (using a merciful euphemism toward your comment). She was a free and brave journalist who died because she had the guts to say that the king is naked. Making her a sort of parody of a victim of a non-existent supposed culture of the femenine (hystorical "respect for the femenine" ..should lead to killing her in "this way" I really can't get the connection between your two sentences!) is offensive for her work and dedication to seek the truth at any cost. In front of such an execution, someone starts talking about typical ways of killing "a female"...as much as Italians talk loud and play guitar, Spanish dance the flamenco, Germans eat wurstel and English don't wash their genitals becouse don't have a bidet in the toilet. Please! please! Don't make me read this banality in front of this horror..
you are misinterpreting my intention here, i am pointing to the way that such political assassinations are often carried out in a symbolic way, relevant to certain locations which have significant meaning to those who are involved. it could all also be 'coincidence', but i don't think so.
This is a very sad story. Investigative journalism is very risky. I pray there will be a system someday to protect journalists from all these evils.
May her soul rest in peace.
This just makes me want to do even more deeper investigative work here on steemit. I need to get my head around the Panama Papers website as I bet there is still so much to uncover in the data.
This is one of the reasons why anonymity is your friend in such work.
Thanks
Malta has not even 500.000 citizens, I lived there and I can tell you that the new as it comes from the media gives not even 1/1000 of the idea of how criminal and scary this execution is. Followed you dude.
RIP Galazia. This is truly a deplorable killing and clearly meant to send a message.
Regarding Iceland's former prime minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, using an offshore company to hide money. That is not true. It was his wife's company (and money), not his.
The Icelandic tax authorities knew about the company, Wintris, and it was recently revealed she had overpaid on taxes. Saying that Gunnlaugsson used the company to hide money has been widely reported in international media, but it is simply factually incorrect.
Here is an article about Wintris' taxes:
http://www.mbl.is/frettir/kosning/2017/10/02/ofgreiddi_skatta_vegna_wintris/
I hope it is readable with Google Translate.
Hello @v4vapid
This is a very sad story. Investigative journalism is very risky. I pray there will be a system someday to protect journalists from all these evils.
May her soul rest in peace.
@learnandteach01
Very sad, bless her soul. RIP
the panama papers were one of the biggest scandal to ever come of the modern age , and repurcusion was enourmous , it sad that this has to happen, and it shows that was she was investigating was truth for them to take her life, sad day in deed, RIP
Rest in Peace, Daphne Caruana Galizia. This is a terrible loss for the world.
thx for posting all of this, hadn't seen some of these updates on it yet 👍
cheers, thanks for reading ;)
I suspect she was investigating something related to a gang/Mafia because intelligence services will always keep their hands clean. Hence deaths looks like natural causes. Bombing the car however sends a message to whom ever she was working with.
You may be correct about the mafia as the Guardian article mentioned she has investigated the mafia in Malta.
However, I really doubt that intelligence agencies 'always keep their hands clean'.
Just as an example: The CIA Drone Program
Spy agencies (intelligence service is their own euphemism) also send messages.
add another notch to her gun..
This is terrible to see. It's one of those things that we see happen in the movies, but when it happens in real life its send a chill down my spine. It shows you just how much corruption is out there in the world. Good on Assange for posting a bounty to find the killers. Scary stuff though, no one is untouchable
It really is scary stuff. Definitely a warning by TPTB that looking into their tax evasion and money laundering crimes will not be tolerated.
God I hope WL releases whatever it is they've been hinting at.
These are good comments @v4vapid and @jasonshick. Scaring is the word, in a EU country and with such a direct connection between her recent work of targeting the Maltese establishment. So directly linked! The modality of this execution means a lot. Not because of a tradition of femicide (as I unfortunately had to read here), but becouse of the similies with the mafia executions (see Falcone, Borsellino, Impastato) and becouse this is a clear message to all the journalists and free people that want to raise their heads in the island..scary, that's the word. Followed you guys.
Check the comment further down ,your comment was copy and pasted further down but its been flagged, this guy is doing this alot