The War On News

A record of government actions against journalism and fact-based reporting, 1900 to today

Incident

Malta: minister orders reporter's bank account frozen

MaltaRSF rank: not recorded

Engraving of an empty press briefing room with a lectern and rows of chairs

A month after journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia published reporting on members of Malta's government, the economy minister had her bank account frozen, one of dozens of legal actions she faced before she was killed in a car bombing in October 2017.123

What happened

Daphne Caruana Galizia, Malta's best-known investigative journalist, published reporting in January 2017 that included compromising information about members of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's government. The following month, February 2017, Malta's economy minister had her bank account frozen, an administrative order that cut off her access to her own funds while she continued reporting. The freeze came during a period in which Caruana Galizia faced dozens of civil defamation suits from government officials and businesspeople she had reported on, filed in Malta and abroad, which press freedom groups later described as an attempt to exhaust her financially and legally rather than to win any single case. Caruana Galizia was killed in a car bombing outside her home on October 16, 2017, while several of the suits against her remained pending.123

Unresolved as of her killing in October 2017; legal actions against her family continued afterward.3

What reason was given

Stated justification

Not stated in the sources reviewed.123

What changed for reporting

The frozen account was one of many financial and legal pressures Caruana Galizia faced in the months before her killing, alongside dozens of separate lawsuits from officials and businesspeople named in her reporting.123

Timeline

2017

February 2017
Malta: minister orders reporter's bank account frozen

Who acted

NameRole in this incidentOffice at the time
Joseph MuscatotherPrime Minister of Malta

Outlets and journalists

NameKindRelation
Daphne Caruana Galiziajournalistaffected

Sources

  1. MaltaReporters Without Borders, reporting. Source record
  2. The Minister for the Economy and his 'policy officer' have frozen my bank accountsDaphne Caruana Galizia (primary, first-person statement), 2017-02, reporting. Source record
  3. Daphne Caruana Galizia's assassination and the rule of law in Malta (PACE report)Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, 2019-05-29, reporting. Source record

Claims and evidence

Each numbered claim quotes the source it rests on.

  1. The direct link between her reporting and the freeze.The bank account of Daphne Caruana Galizia, a journalist who published compromising information about the members of the government in January 2017, was frozen the following month at the Economy Minister's behest.Malta, Reporters Without Borders.Claim 679, checked 2026-09-22.
  2. RSF's description of legal actions continuing against her family after her death.Even the family members of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, murdered in 2017, have been subjected to posthumous defamation suits.Malta, Reporters Without Borders.Claim 680, checked 2026-09-22.
  3. RSF's account of the criminal case's progress since her killing.Between 2022 and 2026, five perpetrators were sentenced to long prison sentences.Malta, Reporters Without Borders.Claim 681, checked 2026-09-22.