“The European Parliament will stand firm behind the Caruana Galizia family and the people of Malta and will continue to follow the case closely. Justice must prevail,” Antonio Tajani, President of the European Parliament said.

He was a meeting Maltese MEP Francis Zammit Dimech to discuss the latest developments in Malta following the murder of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Zammit Dimech told President Tajani that now, more than ever before, the people of Malta needed the full support of the European Institutions. He stated that the brutal assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia was not only an assault on a journalist but also an assault on the Maltese people’s own freedom of expression since the people have now been deprived of a major source of information about issues of direct concern to them.

MEP Francis Zammit Dimech has been appointed as EPP Group rapporteur on “Media pluralism and media freedom in the European Union” within the CULT Committee which committee is responsible for Media and in which Zammit Dimech is a member. The MEP said that he will be taking this commitment to address the current situation in Malta and to shed light on oppression of the press especially in the light of recent allegations related to bullying of the local media.

Zammit Dimech told Tajani that the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia confirms that the rule of law in Malta is under threat, and on the brink of collapse, something which the Nationalist Party has been insisting on for the past years. Zammit Dimech reiterated that the people had no trust in the Commissioner of the Malta Police Force which in the latest of a series of debacles found no time to meet the Anti-Mafia Commission visiting Malta even if calls have been made, including by Tajani to hold an international investigation with the involvement of Europol. Zammit Dimech said that the people of Malta were not to blame for the lack of trust in the Commissioner of the Malta Police Force considering that the Commissioner had changed five times within four years.