You can't kill a story that's gone global

Hi everyone, 

Shortly after I joined the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in the summer of 2022, my team was hit with a lawsuit. The case centred on a story involving a fund established by Kazakhstan's former dictator. 

We believe the lawsuit was an attempt to censor journalism. (Do I need to say they completely denied this?) It dragged on for almost two years. But this summer, we received the extremely good news that the company suing us had dropped the case – cue sighs of relief and a fair bit of celebration. So today, I want to explore other instances where journalists have been silenced – and how they, and their allies, fought back.

This week, I had the honour of speaking with Matthew Caruana Galizia, a dedicated journalist from Malta. His mother, Daphne Caruana Galizia, was a courageous anti-corruption journalist who was brutally murdered in 2017 by a car bomb. 

Matthew, with his brothers Andrew and Paul, has made it his mission to get justice – not just for her murder but for her work too. He picked up where she left off, ensuring that the people behind her assassination failed to bury her investigations. His message is clear: killing a journalist won’t kill the story.

To help amplify Daphne’s work, Matthew teamed up with Forbidden Stories, a network of journalists committed to continuing the work of their colleagues who are imprisoned or assassinated. Together, they made sure that whatever the killers wanted to hide would be brought to light, not just in Malta, but across the globe.  

Forty-five journalists from 15 different countries worked in secret to continue Daphne’s major investigations. I spoke with Matthew about three of them. The results were immense: not only did they succeed in exposing the hidden dealings of Malta’s elite, but their work also led to criminal charges against those pulling the strings.

One of the key investigations was into the privatisation of three of Malta’s public hospitals. Their findings, which you can read in full here, revealed how the Maltese government poured hundreds of millions of euros into a costly and counterproductive, and possibly corrupt, privatisation deal. Since the story was published, criminal charges have been filed against almost everyone involved, including the former prime minister Joseph Muscat.

Matthew is immensely proud of his mother. “She was the one person who flagged all of the problems with this privatisation deal very early on, 10 years ago, and she kept going with her investigation, even at a time when no other media in Malta wanted to pursue it.” 

The second story we spoke about was the Forbidden Stories exposé on how Maltese passports were being sold on an industrial scale. While the “Golden Visa” program was legal, Daphne believed it was rife with corruption and bribery. Matthew told me that the cash-for-passports scheme was “making a mockery of the law”, and the EU has since taken Malta to court over the programme. 

The most personal investigation, however, that the Forbidden Stories team picked up was one into the construction of Malta’s power plant. This was the story that ultimately led them to Yorgen Fenech, the man Matthew believes orchestrated his mother’s murder. 

Fenech, a property developer, was the co-owner of a business group that in 2013 won the right to build a multimillion euro gas power station in Malta. But Fenech also owned a company called 17 Black, which Daphne had written about and which was said to be a conduit for funnelling money to two Maltese politicians.

The investigation uncovered that companies owned by these two men – the Maltese energy minister and the prime minister’s chief of staff – were expected to receive payments from 17 Black. 

In 2019, Fenech was charged with being involved in the murder, either by ordering it, encouraging it, or promising a reward afterward. He was also charged with planning the murder. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges, and he is awaiting trial.

While a bomb may have silenced Daphne, her sons, alongside the team at Forbidden Stories, ensured her investigations lived on. As Matthew told me: “My mother started out completely alone, ended completely alone, but now in the years following her murder – I hope that if she can see what’s happening, she'll realise that many other people have taken up the fight.”

“It all happened in September when I was arrested. Around nine intelligence officers, accompanied by a judge, came to my door. They informed me that I was being placed in custody and said, ‘You must know why we are here, so give us the documents and it will be quicker.’

I was taken aback. I’m a journalist, and I know my rights. You can’t just knock on my door and demand my sources. But they told me that, in France, it’s legal to arrest and search a journalist for 48 hours. They can search your house, take your notebooks, search your computer and phone, and even use surveillance against a journalist. Everything is legal if they claim there’s an overriding public interest, even if it essentially undermines democracy.

In the eyes of justice, particularly anti-terrorism justice, which is ironic in this situation, they saw their actions as legitimate, necessary, and proportionate. So, I had spies who are usually focused on preventing terrorist attacks searching my house, office, and computer, using surveillance tools to scrape all my data and messages – all in the name of anti-terrorism.

The situation became almost absurd. I had been reporting on how an anti-terrorism operation had been diverted from its original objective to kill civilians in Egypt with French support. In a way, their actions proved my point, though the experience was still quite brutal. 

They put me in jail for two days and one night, without proper access to a toilet or water. It was clear they wanted to weaken me, to force me to reveal Disclose’s sources, not only for this story, but for all our stories on weapons deals. They asked me numerous questions, but I refused to speak. Eventually, they released me without explanation. 

You might think that once released, the ordeal would be over, but it’s not. I could be indicted at any moment – tomorrow, in two months, even up to 15 years while this investigation is ongoing. In France, you need to be indicted to know what’s happening. So, I’m in this absurd situation where I almost wish to be indicted, just to understand the status of this judicial investigation. It’s unbelievable.

I’m uncertain about the extent of their cooperation with Egyptian intelligence regarding this story. In October, there was a very troubling signal when a woman, an Egyptian activist, was arrested in Turkey. I had never had contact with her before, but she was one of the activists who filed a complaint at the European Court of Human Rights after our investigation, to hold France accountable. She’s a vocal critic of the Egyptian regime. Her arrest is a clear signal that Egypt will not let this go and is tracking down anyone associated with this investigation.

This also serves as a warning to me, to other journalists, and to the French government that they are targeting anyone potentially linked to this story. It’s a widespread, global intimidation effort.

After my arrest, the investigation got both international attention, and French attention. When we first published, many people didn’t know about it because the French media didn’t talk about it. So there was some good for us, a small independent investigative newspaper.”

Even though I got to talk to some remarkable individuals this week, I don’t want to leave you with the idea that speaking out always needs to be one person choosing to be brave. We can all do it together. Too often, I think, we talk about journalists or campaigners as “lone wolves” but, to borrow a line from, um, Game of Thrones, it’s the pack that survives. Working together keeps stories alive. 

TBIJ has worked with both Disclose and Forbidden Stories, and it always makes the work – and the subsequent change – stronger when we collaborate. 

During our years-long lawsuit, we relied on support from our fellow journalists and, more importantly, our readers to help us through. We crowdfunded some of our legal costs, and our members gave us the confidence to keep going. If you were one of them - thank you. (And if you want to become one, for the next time we annoy the rich and powerful, click the button below.)

Thanks for reading! Remember, I always love to hear from you, so do drop me an email to let me know what you think. 

Have a lovely week, Lucy