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Date: 2024-11-02 Page is: DBtxt001.php txt00023469
MALTA
CORRUPTION

Corruption in Malta ... 'Daphne was right' ... a journalist gets assassinated for exposing systemic corruption


Photo by Paul Mendoza on Shutterstock

Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4gO8TyluMI
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
The scale of corruption in the modern world beggars belief. I was not 'taught' about corruption either at school, in the university setting or in connection with professional training. I learned about corruption in the real world when I had roles that had me 'following the money' and accounting for performance.

There is a lot of 'petty' corruption ... and much of this is doing damage to society at the individual level. But it came as a huge shock to learn the scale of 'grand corruption' where people in leadership positions engage in all sorts of inappropriate behaviors.

I was delighted when Transparency Internatonal (TI) was founded. I had been doing quite a lot of consulting work for the World Bank during the 1980s and 1990s and I understood the frustration of ???? who had worked at the World Bank before leaving and starting TI.
Peter Burgess
Corruption in Malta ... 'Daphne was right'

Transparency International

21/10/2022:

Hi Peter,

On Sunday, thousands of people gathered in Valletta, Malta's capital, for a night-time vigil to mark the five-year anniversary of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s killing. Daphne was a courageous independent journalist who investigated and reported on high-level corruption in the small Mediterranean nation. Her brutal murder in 2017 continues to disturb people throughout Europe to this day.

As Daphne’s family embarked down the path to ensure her killers were brought to justice, a group of journalists picked up her work to shed light on the shady and corrupt deals that Daphne was working to uncover.

In a matter of months, The Daphne Project by Forbidden Stories started to confirm what she was already on to. For example, journalists uncovered that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s two daughters had secretly funnelled millions of dollars via Malta’s Pilatus Bank, corroborating Daphne’s earlier reports. Following evidence of several breaches, the bank lost its license in 2018 and was charged with money laundering earlier this year.

Daphne also fiercely reported on corruption in Malta’s controversial “golden passports” scheme, even if that meant infuriating powerful interests and litigious actors. Subsequent investigations into a possible kickback from three Russian applicants – which led to the arrest of Keith Schembri, former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s chief of staff – validated her suspicions. And just last month, the European Commission announced that it’s taking Malta to court to make it end the golden passports scheme.

Daphne would have been relieved to see her revelations trigger much-needed change in her home country and beyond. Her life’s work had a meaning.


Yet the investigations into her killing were marred with a lack of transparency and conflicts of interest, so Daphne’s family and press freedom organisations campaigned – successfully – for an independent public inquiry. And last year, the inquiry determined that Daphne’s assassination was connected to her journalistic work and that the Maltese government bears responsibility for the culture of impunity it created.

The public has kept up the pressure throughout the criminal investigations, leading to resignations of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Chief of Staff Keith Schembri and Minister of Tourism Konrad Mizzi – who all featured heavily in Daphne’s investigations. Last week, two men were convicted of her murder, while the politically connected businessman who allegedly ordered the killing awaits trial in custody.

During her lifetime and with her legacy work, Daphne Caruana Galizia has contributed immensely to advancing the anti-corruption agenda, with her work providing evidence for Transparency International’s calls to create a new EU body to supervise banks and stop abuse in the EU golden visa schemes. ​​​​

In this video, we explain why golden passport and visa schemes are so problematic, and why we’re calling for an EU-wide solution.

Anger over her treatment – both before and after her murder – has also fuelled a movement to end frivolous and vexatious libel suits, also known as SLAPPs, against journalists and human rights defenders in the EU.

Her killing and its aftermath should have been a wake-up call for Malta to overcome high-level corruption and end the country’s role in cross-border financial crime. But the struggle continues.

Alongside the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation – a non-profit established by her family, which is also our representative in Malta – Transparency International will continue to fight for these causes as our way to honour Daphne’s work.


Daphne Caruana Galizia | Anti-Corruption Award Winner 2018 (full)

Transparency International

14.2K subscribers 4,965 views 120 likes

Oct 21, 2018

Daphne Caruana Galizia as a brave and effective investigative journalist who exposed major corruption scandals involving powerful politicians and other individuals in Malta and abroad. She was murdered in October 2017. We spoke with one of her sons, Paul.

“Daphne’s battle was a dangerous one and that the bravery with which she fought it should serve as an example to us all as we continue her unfinished fight.” – Paul Caruana Galizia, son of Daphne.
  • 0:00 Intro: Who was Daphne Caruana Galizia?
  • 1:31 Working on major corruption stories prior to her assassination
  • 2:33 What happened to Malta?
  • 3:14 Daphne's legacy
More info: https://www.transparency.org/news/pre...

We would like to kindly thank Exiger for supporting the Anti-Corruption Award. [ www.exiger.com ]

We also want to thank Neurads for producing the videos for this awards. [ www.neurads.com ]



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