PAUL CARUANA GALIZIA, the youngest son of investigative reporter Daphne, explains why he was compelled to follow in her footsteps
ON 16 OCTOBER 2017, Paul Caruana Galizia was at his desk in London when his brother called to say their mother Daphne, a journalist who had reported fearlessly on corruption in their native Malta, had been assassinated. That she was at risk for her reporting had not been lost on him. In Paul’s 2023 book, A Death in Malta, he writes: "I grew up thinking it normal to have our mother’s name all over the newspapers.for politicians to sue and slander her, to have our house set on fire." Her murder was still shocking. Daphne died in a car bomb attack, Paul’s brother Matthew finding her remains in a field close to their house. Three men have been jailed in connection with Daphne’s murder and former prime minister Joseph Muscat resigned over the issue but the family feel the full story, and level of state involvement, has not been fully revealed.
Daphne with her family
CREDIT: The Daphne Foundation
index Many would ask why you followed in your mother’s footsteps. Did you have a choice?
paul caruana galizia I was determined not to be a journalist, so as not to be compared to my mother. I spent most of my twenties working in finance and academia. But after she was murdered, when I was 28, my brothers and I stopped working to campaign on her case. When things got to a point where I needed to start working again, a job in journalism came up - and it felt like the right thing to do. It still does.
index How did you find writing A Death in Malta?
pcg I found writing A Death in Malta both cathartic and hugely challenging. It was challenging in a way I didn’t expect. I thought writing about her murder would be the difficult thing - and it was difficult. But by the time I came to write, we learnt a lot about the murder and a lot of evidence was heard in open court. Much harder for me was writing about my mother’s early life - reporting on her childhood, adolescence, marriage and children, and her move into journalism. It was the harder job and the more rewarding one because I got to learn more about my mother.
index Six years on from your mother’s death, has anything changed in Malta around corruption and the safety of journalists?
pcg Malta hasn’t changed anywhere near enough since my mother’s murder. There hasn’t been a single prosecution over my mother’s major corruption stories, including all her reporting on allegations of corruption in a major energy privatisation project. Whether Malta brings prosecutions against the individuals involved in these stories - many of them former senior government officials - will be a major test for the state. The environment for journalists remains difficult and dangerous. More than a year on since the public inquiry into my mother’s death, the government has failed to implement any of the inquiry’s recommendations to ensure journalists’ safety.
index Why do you think independent journalism still remains important?
pcg My mother’s story shows the power of journalism to change lives and an entire country. The public inquiry into her death concluded that it was her journalism that stopped Malta from turning into an entrenched mafia state.
index Will your family ever get justice?
pcg Yes, we will get justice for my mother. We are never giving up and never giving in.
index What piece of art has affected you the most?
pcg My brothers reading from the Bible - Ecclesiastes 3 and Psalm 62 - at our mother’s funeral.
index What news headline would you most like to read?
pcg Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murderers sentenced to life
