(ANSA) - LA VALLETTA, 29 JUL - "The State should take responsibility for the murder" of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Maltese journalist killed with a bomb placed in her car on October 16, 2017 who, instead of being protected, was exposed to her enemies by a corrupt government whose "tentacles" have reached the top of the police.
The conclusions of the final report of the public inquiry conducted - after the very strong pressure of the Council of Europe - by a commission composed of former presidents of the Tribunal Michael Mallia, Joseph Said Pullicino and Justice Abigail Lofaro and concluded last spring are unequivocal. The purpose of the public investigation, which lasted almost two years, in which the former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, the former Chief of Cabinet Keith Schembri and the former Minister of Energy and then of Tourism KonradMizzi were also called to testify in dramatic hearings. refused to answer in court), was to establish whether the Maltese state had done everything possible to protect the journalist and then prosecute those responsible for the murder.
The State, wrote the judges in the 437-page report published in full by the Maltese media and transmitted yesterday to Prime Minister Robert Abela (who this morning has already authorized the broadcast despite having eight days of time) then to the Caruana Galizia family, "has created an atmosphere of impunity, generated by the highest levels of administration within the Auberge de Castille (the seat of the Malta government in Valletta), whose tentacles have spread to other institutions, such as the police and regulatory authorities, leading to the collapse of the rule of law ".
The judicial investigation, still in progress, had a sudden acceleration in the summer of 2019 (almost two years after the arrest of the three material executors) with the identification of the death intermediary, Melvin Theuma, who led to the arrest of the tycoon Yorgen Fenech as principal, in the fall of the Muscat government and, last February, that of the local mafia bosses who supplied the bomb. A series of other corruption and money laundering investigations have sprung up from the investigation, leading to the arrest of Keith Schembri.
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