Malta Caruana murder: Resignations spark government crisis

26 November 2019

Two years after the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, a volley of resignations has rocked Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's government.

His chief aide, Keith Schembri, quit amid reports he was being questioned by police, and Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi also resigned.

The Economy Minister, Chris Cardona, took the decision to suspend himself.

Opposition MPs heckled the prime minister with shouts of "mafia" when he walked into parliament.

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Third Maltese minister quits amid fallout from journalist's murder

PM Joseph Muscat under pressure after arrests in relation to Daphne Caruana Galizia’s killing

Juliette Garside in Valletta
@JulietteGarside
Tue 26 Nov 2019 18.59 GMT
Last modified on Tue 26 Nov 2019 20.35 GMT

The future of Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, hangs in the balance after his chief of staff and two ministers stepped down in rapid succession amid controversy over the murder of the anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The ministerial departures on Tuesday followed a series of arrests in the hunt for those behind the assassination of Caruana Galizia, a renowned investigative reporter who was killed by a car bomb near her home in October 2017.

The resignations of the chief of staff, Keith Schembri, and the tourism minister, Konrad Mizzi, were immediately followed by an announcement that the economy minister, Chris Cardona, was suspending himself. All three men have denied wrongdoing.

The departures came almost four years after Caruana Galizia used a leak of offshore information, known as the Panama Papers, to reveal that Schembri and Mizzi, who was then energy minister, had become the beneficiaries of secretive Panama shell companies shortly after assuming office.

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