Bedingfield's anti-Daphne blog flagged as he is appointed home affairs minister

The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation has highlighted the public inquiry’s finding that Home Affairs Minister Glenn Bedingfield’s blog was the “worst expression” of a sustained campaign against the journalist.

As he was sworn in to office on Thursday, the foundation drew attention to sections of the inquiry concerning Bedingfield, who has been appointed Home Affairs Minister.

The inquiry found the state should "shoulder responsibility" for the murder of the journalist, who died when a car bomb exploded outside her home in Bidnija.

In its report, the inquiry said: “The evidence shows there were elements both within the State entities and in particular within the Office of the Prime Minister that actively acted to thwart the journalist in her work and contributed to a sustained campaign in an organised manner.”

Another section of the report singled out Bedingfield.

“This sustained and strong denigratory campaign found its strongest outlet in social media and its worst expression was the blog which was set up and led by the honourable Glenn Bedingfield who occupied a position within the Office of the Prime Minister," the inquiry report said.

The foundation said Bedingfield was a “key operator in the orchestrated campaign to dehumanise Daphne and delegitimise her work”.

It also said the government had failed, since 2021, to implement the inquiry’s recommendations or support and collaborate with the foundation.

Bedingfield, a former official at the Office of the Prime Minister, ran a self-titled blog that was highly critical of Caruana Galizia and her work.

During the 2020 public inquiry into the murder Bedingfield testified that he had set up the eponymous blog in 2016 to “rebut what she said”. He said he stopped writing it in 2018 because his workload increased after he became a Member of Parliament.

The inquiry was told that Bedingfield wrote 1,000 posts about Caruana Galizia while running the blog, including 597 that had her name in the title.

Bedingfield told the inquiry the blog was political and “intended to lend a voice to all those who were attacked and ridiculed by Caruana Galizia”. He presented the board with a list of 558 people, he said, who had been targeted by her.

He denied being employed by the Office of the Prime Minister to attack Caruana Galizia, although he did not deny writing the blog during work hours.

The inquiry also heard evidence about Tagħna t-tnejn, a ONE TV show Bedingfield co-presented with Luke Dalli.

At the time, Matthew Caruana Galizia told the inquiry his mother had been depicted on the show “as a demented witch” in a sketch called El Fava.

He described the character as having “a hooked nose, candles and a bottle of Jack Daniels, taking a drink”.

Bedingfield told the inquiry the sketch was not an incitement to violence but a matter of freedom of expression.