Daphne Anne Vella was born in Silema, Malta on August 26, 1964. In 1985, she married attorney Peter Caruana Galizia. They had three sons, Matthew, Andrew, and Paul. In 1990, the family moved to Bidnija in Mosta. She was a political activist, an investigative journalist, and a blogger. Matthew, also, became an investigative journalist.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was fearless and tenacious in her pursuit of truth and justice. She was arrested several times. The front door of her house was set ablaze. Another time the family dog’s throat was slit and laid across the front doorstep. Threatening notes were tacked to her front door, or faxed or emailed to her, telling her to back down on stories or her life was in danger. Her car was set on fire. She did not back down. She was routing out corruption in Malta that had (and has) international, financial and environmental consequences. Some news outlets were too intimidated to carry her stories. In 2008, she set up her own blog, Running Commentary, to be unrestrained in publishing her own stories and opinion pieces.

She revealed on Running Commentary that a prominent Maltese government minister was entangled with unsavory dealings with Panama and New Zealand. This proved to be an embarrassment and true. It was the tip of the iceberg of the Panama Papers. By the time of Daphne’s assassination, there were 48 libel suits outstanding against her. There were also threats intimidating several media outlets, some of which were dropped within hours of her death. Her work in revealing the Panama Papers eventually brought down the government of Iceland and implicated banks and government officials around the world.

On October 16, 2017, at about 3 pm, Ms. Caruana Galizia was assassinated in a car bomb attack while she was driving her leased Peugeot 108 near their home.

In May 2017 Pilatus Bank’s owner and chairman, Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, sued Daphne Caruana Galizia in an Arizona court in his own name and in the name of Pilatus Bank. The case was for $40 million in damages. Ms. Caruana Galizia was never notified about it and it was withdrawn within hours of her assassination. The prime minister has refused to commission an investigation into her death. To this date, her assassination has not been solved. She has received over two dozen posthumous awards and honors in Europe and America for her integrity, and her good and heroic quest for truth as a journalist. There is a thorough article about her story in The New Yorker.

This painting has a red edge, so like the sad, old joke about newspapers, this is “black and white and red all ’round.”

The painting is acrylic on 24″ x 24″ stretched canvas.

Price: $320 plus postage.

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