Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat described murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia Wednesday as "his biggest adversary" but vowed to track down and bring her killers to justice.
The centre-left premier, who
was accused by the blogger's son on Tuesday of being complicit in his
mother's death, attempted to shift the spotlight onto the main
opposition Nationalist Party, saying it had been the focus of Caruana
Galizia's latest investigations.
"It is
unthinkable in a country like Malta to die for your job, in Caruana
Galizia's case for what she wrote," Muscat said in an interview with
Italy's La Repubblica daily.
"She was
probably my biggest adversary, she attacked me from when I was leader of
the opposition. But that was her job," he said, adding that he had
called in "the FBI and other European security services" to find her
killers.
Caruana Galizia, who had been called a "one-woman Wikileaks", was killed in a car bomb on Monday.
She
had lately used her widely-read blog to make a series of detailed
allegations of corruption in Muscat's inner circle, some based on the
Panama Papers data leak.
Muscat refused
to speculate on who might be behind her death, but said that "the
easiest thing for me to do would be to point the finger against the
opposition, the leader of which was the subject of Daphne's latest
stories".
'Cowardly attack'
In
an interview with La Stampa daily, he raised opposition leader Adrian
Delia again, saying the blogger had accused him of "money laundering,
prostitution and more".
Muscat also said
she had written on her blog about receiving threats "from people in the
opposition" over the last month, but that he could not verify the claim.
On Tuesday Delia called on Muscat to step down, accusing him of personally failing to safeguard the blogger's life.
Muscat
responded to that charge in an interview with Maltese TV, saying he
could not impose police protection on someone who did not want it.
Dutch forensic experts arrived on the island on Tuesday to aid the investigation.
Police
sources said Semtex explosives were believed to have been used in the
car bomb, a demolition compound known to be favoured by terrorists in
large-scale attacks.
Cauana Galizia's killing has sent shock waves around the world with the United States the latest country to condemn it.
"It
was a cowardly attack that took the life of a talented and brave
reporter who dedicated her career to ... shining light on corruption,"
said State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert.
"The
Government of Malta and Malta police force have been in contact with
the FBI about the investigation and the FBI is providing specific
assistance."
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