Updated 6.55pm
Portrait photos of Daphne Caruana Galizia were scattered across the entrance to the Prime Minister’s office on Monday evening, as people gathered to mark nine months since the journalist was killed.
The photos, together with print-outs of Ms Caruana Galizia’s final written words – “there are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate” – were laid across Auberge de Castille’s main doorway, with another paper asking “Who’s paying Daphne’s assassin?”
Occupy Justice activists stood outside the Prime Minister's office and held up mock-ups of football stickers with the faces of Joseph Muscat, his chief of staff Keith Schembri and minister Konrad Mizzi on them.
"The World Cup is over, but in Malta the corruption world cup is still going on," activists said. "Three players are left. They've long been shown the red card but they refuse to leave the pitch. They are ruining Malta's reputation."
Activists yelled “barra, barra” [“out, out”] as somebody inside the OPM began closing windows.
Ms Caruana Galizia was murdered in a car bomb attack on October 16, in a crime that sent shockwaves across the globe. Three people have since been charged with her murder, but investigators admit the criminal mastermind has yet to be caught.
Police have also said that they have not interrogated any politicians in connection with the murder, saying there is no reasonable suspicion to justify doing so. That reasoning has outraged activists, who note that most of Ms Caruana Galizia's writing focused on politicians.
The protest came just hours after a man was filmed by Times of Malta videographer Chris Sant Fournier removing placards and posters with similar messages from the Rabat road.
Hours after Times of Malta released the footage, the Planning Authority issued a statement saying it had started to remove the “unsightly placards and posters”, which it described as a “traffic hazard” and in violation of billboard regulations.
Photo: Chris Sant Fournier
Football sticker mock-ups for Malta's 'world cup of corruptuon'.