Comment by throwaway_malta | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway_malta | Hacker News Reader

throwaway_malta

You can make up your mind of what kind of person she was by reading her blog:

https://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/

She was hated by many, both because she was very biased (think more Breitbart than Fox News) and also because she had no reservations about punching below the belt. It is hard to write this without sounding biased, but I never thought of her as a good person nor as a good journalist.

The perpetrator could be anyone, but personally I do not think it was politically motivated since she supported a faction of the opposition that is currently, completely in shambles and she was therefore no threat to anyone. Moreover, most of the Maltese population did not respect her as a journalist because of her overt bias. All the people jumping to conclusions are just doing a disservice to her by possibly misleading the investigations.

There is also no reason to believe that she was killed by some "international bankers" or some such conspiracy theories. Her "investigative journalism" was limited to attacking the PL, one of our two main political parties. She never really ventured past that.

I will not speculate further.

> Her car, a Peugeot 108, was destroyed by a powerful explosive device which blew the vehicle into several pieces and threw the debris into a nearby field.

> A blogger whose posts often attracted more readers than the combined circulation of the country’s newspapers, Caruana Galizia was recently described by the Politico website as a “one-woman WikiLeaks”. Her blogs were a thorn in the side of both the establishment and underworld figures that hold sway in Europe’s smallest member state.

The article contradicts pretty much everything you just said.

Her blog was popular. I read it too. Not because I agreed with her. Go read the blog, yourself to see what kind of person she was.

Most people hated her because she was mean and her pastime, when not professionally attacking politicians on the other side of the aisle, was to dig up dirt on their spouses and acquaintances and attacking them on a personal level. [5]

For example of the kind of shit that she would engage in: Here she is reposting revenge porn. The victim is an acquaintance of some random major of some random town that leans towards the other political party. The major did nothing wrong nor was she politically relevant in anyway. This was her bread and butter "journalism". [1]

With regards to the car bomb, I'm not sure what you are saying here. I am not denying that she was murdered using a car bomb. Are you saying that this implies a high level actor? Far from it. Low level thugs and organized crime members kill each other with car bomb frequently. [2] [3] [4]

One last thing. With regards to the whole Panama thing, that was potentially her only work that could be see as real journalism. But also that situation is being misrepresented. The entire picture is more complicated. The thing is that she was part of a faction of the opposition who had previously been in power for 25 years and where themselves corrupt. So much so that despite the whole Panama scandal thing, the recent election saw the newly in power PL government widen the gap by a very huge margin of 40000 votes out of a few hundred thousand. Basically the statement by the electorate was, "we do not care that the PL are corrupt, you guys were equally corrupt and for much longer, at least the PL as improving things elsewhere". This resulted in the her party basically disintegrating and is currently fragmented and disorganized. This is why I said that a political motive does not make sense. Because there is no reason for it. The electorate wants the PL to lead the country for a few more years despite the corruption because they are so fed up with the PN.

[1] NSFW Link: https://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2015/09/bottom-of-the-barre...

[2] https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20160116/local/ma...

[3] https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20121003/local/Po...

[4] https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130607/world/bo...

[5] There were reports of people celebrating her death at the university and elsewhere. That's how much they hated her.

It seems unfair to me that you are being downvoted. I am a Maltese developer and my thoughts mirror yours. The international media has taken a slant on this (assuming that her murder is connected to the Panama Papers) which may turn out to be correct but is far from certain.

This is one of the most insightful comments here. Not sure why it's being downvoted?

Your links below certainly seem to support what you are saying.

Car bombs just plant themselves now?

I did not deny that she was murdered. I just said that there is no reason to believe that this was a politically motivated murder when it would make no sense at all at this point in time.

Keep in mind that we may not be in possession of all the facts about what she was working on or whom she was in contact with. Usually, during the course of an investigation and before publication, a reporter will have made contact with and presented evidence to the target of the investigation. Even if she weren't actually working on an investigation, her murderers may have perceived her to be an ongoing danger.

Yes, it's possible that she was just a random victim. Reminds me of the subplot in "The Wire" in which an politically important homicide victim is found later to have died of an accident. But I'm guessing random accidental shootings happen more in Baltimore than planted car bombs in Malta.

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