The first overseas branch of the anti-mafia group Fondazione Falcone was inaugurated on Sunday evening. 

Former Repubblika president Robert Aquilina will act as the foundation’s local representative. 

The foundation's president Professor Maria Falcone, whose brother was killed in the 1992 attacks, was also present for the inauguration.  

Speaking during the inauguration in Siġġiewi, Aquilina drew parallels between the assassination of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in Italy and the October 2017 car bombing of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.  

The branch was launched on Sunday in Siġġiewi. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Aquilina said Caruana Galizia’s assassination had spurred a sense of civic duty in him and many others.  

He said the challenges faced by the murdered journalist were similar to those faced by Falcone and Borsellino in the lead-up to their killings by the Cosa Nostra mafia in 1992. 

Aquilina said these common challenges eventually led to the foundation setting up its first overseas branch in Malta.  

“With this branch, we want to achieve in Malta what the foundation has already done in Italy. We want to bring about a positive cultural change. We want to foster a culture based on the rule of law, and all that is just. We want to foster a culture against all that is not just.”  

Aquilina acknowledged that this change could not be brought about overnight.  

He noted how the foundation had found support for its goals from the Italian state.  

Aquilina said he wanted to foster a similar collaboration with the Maltese state, and thus make the foundation’s anti-mafia battle that of the state.  

He said President Myriam Spiteri Debono’s presence at the inauguration augured well for the future of this collaboration.  

Myriam Spiteri Debono also addressed the event. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

In her address, the President referred to Caruana Galizia's last words online: 'The situation is desperate; there are crooks everywhere'.  

"To me, her cry says: ‘Come on, do something about it; Sbrigati, fate qualcosa! All three - Giovanni Falcone, Paolo Borsellino and Daphne Caruana Galizia - paid a price.  The ultimate price. To their names must be added the names of others," she said, providing a rundown of other journalists killed across Europe over the years, from Azerbaijan to Poland and the UK.

"No country - not even Western democracies, not even the European Union member states - seems to be free of this plague, and organised crime emerges as another issue which gives rise to the gagging of those who seek to expose it," she said.

Giovanni Falcone was right, Spiteri Debono added: "This plague transcends national borders, it pervades politics, it hits the media, it strikes at the very heart of criticism of those circles of influences in cahoots together to destroy and devastate the smooth workings of good governance principles, conspiracies of greed steeped in corruption eroding the tenets of public interest, justice and equality."

The President said Caruana Galizia's assassination hit Malta hard.  

It was a clarion call for civilians to wake up, she added.

"The tools of democracy were set in motion.  However, if their recommendations are not implemented, they are a dead letter," she said.