Sons of journalist murdered in car bomb attack demand resignation of Malta's prime minister

The three sons of murdered Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia have demanded the resignation of the country’s prime minister, as it emerged that the car bomb that killed her was probably triggered by a mobile phone signal.

Investigators believe the bomber would have had visual contact with Mrs Caruana Galizia’s car as she left her home in the village of Bidnija on Monday. 

The bomber appears to have waited until the vehicle was clear of other houses before detonating the device, which investigators believe was packed with Semtex, the plastic explosive that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people.

Analysis of mobile phone calls may enable investigators to pin-point the bomber's location when the device was detonated.

Scotland Yard denied media reports that British detectives were set to fly to Malta to help with the investigation.

As Dutch and FBI experts continued to comb through the wreckage of the bombing, the journalist’s sons launched a stinging attack on Joseph Muscat, Malta’s prime minister.

In a strongly-worded message, they said the identification and arrest of whoever killed their mother would mean nothing unless it went hand-in-hand with rooting out corruption and money-laundering on the Mediterranean island.

"Resign for failing to uphold our fundamental freedoms. Resign for watching over the birth of a society dominated by fear, mistrust, crime and corruption. Resign for working to cripple our mother financially and dehumanise her so brutally and effectively that she no longer felt safe walking down the street,” Matthew, Andrew and Paul Caruana Galizia wrote on Facebook.

They refused to endorse a one million euro (£890,000) reward offered by the Maltese government, despite coming under “unrelenting pressure” from Mr Muscat to do so.

“We are not interested in a criminal conviction only for the people in government who stood to gain from our mother’s murder to turn around and say that justice has been served,” the brothers said.  “Justice, beyond criminal liability, will only be served when everything that our mother fought for – political accountability, integrity in public life and an open and free society – replaces the desperate situation we are in.”

They said that Malta had been “taken apart piece by piece and devoured by the criminal and the corrupt.”

Mrs Caruana Galizia’s relentless criticism of alleged corruption and cronyism among the Maltese political elite triggered an early election four months ago. 

She accused Mr Muscat and his wife of receiving payments from the ruling family of Azerbaijan and stashing the money in secret offshore accounts in Panama.  The Muscats deny the allegations.