A week ago, on the eve marking six months since the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia, many were afraid that memories of her were starting to fade.

People from her immediate circle put up posts in which they expressed fear that those who had filled the Valletta streets on the morrow of her death had stopped attending the subsequent events, even though they still supported the cause.

Then two things happened.

The crowd of people who attended Mass at St Francis Church celebrated by the Archbishop and later the vigil at the Daphne shrine opposite the Law Courts was quite remarkable.

And the next day, the Daphne Project began to broadcast updates and more news linked to what Daphne had revealed in her blog. Carried by some of the best-known newspapers of the free world, they attracted instant publicity and more notoriety for Malta.

It is going to be difficult to sue such well-known newspapers or to impose SLAPPs on them. It is going to be difficult to shut them all up. The game has taken on a new dimension and Malta’s name is mud on all of them. Joseph Muscat has become a familiar name around the world, and not for the best reasons.

Of course, news about this development was restricted at first to the English language papers while the Maltese media got at best an expurgated version. The average Maltese viewer is more interested in bread and butter issues than on what Le Monde, La Repubblica, and the rest are saying about Malta.

We all read the accounts of the testimonies at Court by the investigative officers and many of us must have concluded the investigation is leading nowhere as the real questions are not being asked. That was when the next in a long series of obstacles was put in – Daphne’s real laptop, the one she was using just before leaving the house and being blown up, has gone missing.

Now this is a huge issue. I seriously doubt if it can point the way to the identity of her killers. Daphne, as we all know, was an intensely active person who would answer any email or post whatever the hour. I myself still have on my email the replies she sent to my messages (Some I have unfortunately lost). So too must her close friends.

For her laptop to fall in the wrong hands would be a disaster for all of us and to her memory. We all know what happened when Vince Farrugia was forced to give up his mobile phone and his entire network became public knowledge. Daphne’s family must resist all pressure to hand over her laptop, going if need be to all levels of courts, rather than allow her sources to be identified and punished. Unless the family has already spirited the laptop away from Malta and is beyond retrieval, or dropped it into a cask of cement.

As the pressure mounted, spirited protesters heckled the guests and the Prime Minister as they arrived at a Henley & Partners gala event in London on Friday. But the greatest accolade was reserved for the Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja, the star bill of the event, who, when cornered by the protestors, gave a roundabout defence of his action, and then proceeded to dedicate an aria to Daphne, and announced he would donate his earnings to charity.

It cut no ice. Jason Azzopardi told him: “Singing a prayer song to Daphne after selling your voice to crooks engaged in a shady scheme which she fought so hard against, slapped with lawsuits by your Masters Henley to cripple her, is disgraceful. It is an insult to her mother, husband, family and all of us who believe in a society free from the corrupt with whom you are so comfortable doing business. Henley must have grinned with spite when you sang like a hypocrite. You put fame and money before values and principles in the most despicable way. You did it for Joseph Muscat there is no doubt about it. The passport salesman engaging his minions to make an event good. Engaging the Archbishop to supervise your fee to charity is nothing but a weak attempt at damage control. You have done just like the Prime Minister, flashing your fee to the needy. People are tested in difficult moments. You are not my AMBASSADOR for culture because you are actively engaging in the culture of corruption. Shame. I turn my back on you.” Calleja promptly removed this post from his page.

More. The National Book Council Chairman Mark Camilleri said on Facebook that he is embarrassed by the Labour Party after the latest revelations regarding OPM Chief of Staff Keith Schembri and Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi. Now check Daphne’s Running Commentary and see the many times Daphne attacked Mr Camilleri to get an idea how things are changing.

That’s a far cry from the case of Valletta 18 chief Jason Micallef who was also attacked by Daphne and who still, very visibly, smarts at the memory.

Then there was that droll episode regarding Minister Chris Cardona reportedly meeting one of the three accused of Daphne’s murder in a Siggiewi bar with the minister denying the claim carried in a very cloak and dagger meeting with a punter on German TV and saying in reply that the bar is also frequented by the Leader of the Opposition.

But another seam of the Daphne Project claimed that proof exists that 17 Black was listed as the ‘main client’ and ‘possible payer/sender’ of Tillgate and Hearnville, the offshore Panama companies owned by OPM Chief of Staff Keith Schembri and Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi, leaked emails obtained by German paper Süddeutsche Zeitung, and published by Times of Malta as part of the Daphne Project.

One waits to see what revelations the coming days, if not hours, will bring. All in all, it was a week full of surprising revelations. And yet, Malta’s most popular talk show, Xarabank, focused on the weighty subject of embryos and infertility treatment to the exclusion of all the Daphne Project revelations.

[email protected]