Malta must avoid political interference in Caruana Galizia investigation

Gulnoza Said
Protesters hold up placards and pictures of the murdered Maltese blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia as they gather outside the prime minister's office in Valletta, Malta, on November 20, 2019. CPJ and other press freedom groups are reiterating their call for an independent investigation into the journalist's killing. (AFP/Matthew Mirabelli)

Protesters hold up placards and pictures of the murdered Maltese blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia as they gather outside the prime minister's office in Valletta, Malta, on November 20, 2019. CPJ and other press freedom groups are reiterating their call for an independent investigation into the journalist's killing. (AFP/Matthew Mirabelli)

CPJ and nine other international press freedom organizations today released a joint statement reiterating that the investigation into the assassination of Maltese blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia must be independent and free from political interference.

In recent days, Malta has detained two suspects in connection to the 2017 murder of Caruana Galizia, in addition to the three men who have been in jail in connection to the murder since December 2017. On November 14, authorities arrested Melvin Theuma, a suspected middleman, and on November 20, police detained Yorgen Fenech, a businessman described in reports as a “person of interest” in the murder. Neither Theuma, who was granted a presidential pardon on November 25, nor Fenech, who was released today on bail, have given public statements about the investigation.

Since the arrests, Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has emerged as the main source of information on the investigation, including on possible pardons, while the police commissioner and attorney general have been absent from communications with the press, the joint statement said.

The statement, led by Article 19, called on Maltese authorities to ensure the independence and impartiality of the investigation.

The full statement can be read here.

Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, is a journalist and press freedom advocate with over 20 years of experience in New York, Prague, Bratislava, and Tashkent. At CPJ, she has conducted several missions to countries in Europe and Central Asia, and advocated for greater press freedom and the release of jailed journalists at forums including the U.S. Congress, the United Nations, and the OSCE. Before joining CPJ in 2016, she was a journalist and covered issues including elections, politics, media, religion, and human rights with a focus on Central Asia, Russia, and Turkey. She also worked in communications for the United Nations Secretariat and the UNDP. Her op-eds, reports, and comments have appeared in CNN, the BBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, PBS, NBC, Voice of America, RFE/RL, Fergana, Eurasianet, and other outlets, and she authored the Uzbekistan chapter in a book on the study of social entrepreneurship. Follow her on LinkedIn.

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