Daphne Caruana Galizia was becoming “irrelevant” at the time she was killed, according to Joseph Muscat.

The former Prime Minister was being interviewed by Reuters journalist Stephen Grey as part of his new podcast ‘Who Killed Daphne?’

“She was killed at a time when she was, at least in my mind, becoming irrelevant,” he said. “Government had survived her most virulent onslaught so for me personally it was almost a time of sitting back, taking the popcorn out and enjoying the show. And then she gets killed.”

Muscat said this didn’t make any sense to him. “It still baffles me till this very moment.”

He added that the people behind the murder were “stupid” to think they could get away with it.

“I use this word continuously when I refer to whoever committed the murder. You need to be stupid and out of touch to think that you can get away with it.”

He denied feeling a sense of satisfaction after her death, arguing that the assassination only made her stories more powerful.

“Let’s put it this way, a dead journalist is more damning than a journalist who is alive. While Daphne was alive, you could agree or disagree with her, you could go along with her, criticise her, or have a level-headed discussion about whether what she was writing is true or not. Once that person is killed, not only dead but killed in such a brutal manner, I knew in my mind that all of a sudden everything she has ever written has become true.”