Rally in Malta for Slain Reporter Sparks Political Unity

A rally scheduled to honor Daphne Caruana Galizia, a Maltese investigative journalist who was killed in a car bomb last week, will unite Malta's two main political rivals: the ruling Labor party and opposition Nationalists. 

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Both announced their participation in the public event on Sunday which will demand justice for the slain journalist.

Exceptions to the rare show of political unity will be the absence of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. "I know where I should be and where I should not be. I am not a hypocrite and I recognize the signs," Muscat said, adding that he knows Caruana Galizia's family doesn't want him in attendance.

However, he noted that he backs the rally in support of justice and national unity, according to the Statesman. “I think people silence journalists not because of what they have written, but because of what they are planning to write,” he said, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, Muscat's political rival, Adrian Delia, leader of the Nationalist party, said he would bypass the rally so as to not “stir controversy."

Today is not about me, but about the rule of law and democracy,” he said.

Both Muscat and Delia have brought libel lawsuits against Caruana Galizia for her investigative reporting on corruption. Delia formally withdrew his claim last week after she was killed, Statesman reported.

Corinne Vella, one of Caruana Galizia's three sisters, claims “the libel suits were part of a wider strategy to shut her up,” adding that these legal measures “seemed to be designed to eat up her time and money.”

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Caruana Galizia's family, including her son, who's also an investigative reporter, have called on Muscat, Malta's attorney general and the national police chief to resign. They've declined to endorse the government's one million euro reward for details leading to the arrest and prosecution of those involved in her death.

Caruana Galizia was killed last Monday when a car bomb exploded as she drove through the village of Bidnija in northern Malta. The 53-year-old journalist wrote scathing news reports in her widely-read blog, "Running Commentary," about the Malta's drug trafficking rings, mobsters, its link to the Panama Papers and the government's opaqueness and inability to punish corrupt officials.

According to the Times of Malta, she had filed a police report about two weeks ago stating she had received threats.