The Bureau of the European Parliament has approved a “Daphne Caruana Galizia’ prize for “outstanding journalism work” in honour of the murdered Maltese journalist, killed in a car bomb on October 16, 2017, in an attack that Maltese police have said was intended to silence her work on unveiling corruption and money-laundering in her country, New Europe reports.
The €20,000 prize will be awarded on a yearly basis as of October 2021 to journalists or team of journalists for their outstanding journalism work based on the principles and values of the European Union, and the candidates will be judged by a panel of independent journalists.
“The Daphne Caruana Galizia prize will strengthen investigative and courageous journalism and press freedom. The importance of investigative journalism has been demonstrated by Daphne and many others through revelations about various tax and corruption stories in recent years,” said Sven Giegold, MEP of the Greens/EFA group, who attended the Parliament’s missions to Malta over recent years.
Caruana-Galizia’s brutal assassination prompted an outcry over the authorities’ handling of the case, eventually forcing Maltese Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat to step down and businessman Yorgen Fenech to be arrested in 2019. One of her revelations pointed the finger at Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, and two of his closest aides, connecting offshore companies linked to the three men with the sale of Maltese passports and payments from the government of Azerbaijan.
