A lawyer’s car was torched a few hours after the Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder, and the police are trying to see whether there could be a common element.

Sources said yesterday that the lawyer, a woman, had previously received threats.

Various leads, which had “political and criminal dimensions”, were being investigated, the sources added. They indicated that there were potential links between the car bomb murder and the arson attack. However, they would not elaborate.

The Times of Malta reported on Wednesday that a man who was well known to the Maltese and described by sources as a “gangster” had travelled to Sicily a few hours after Ms Caruana Galizia was murdered on October 16.

The police suspected he could have made the trip to make arrangements to pay the killer or even to effect payment.

However, the Maltese undercover police officers who shadowed him did not find anything suspicious.

The sources said that although investigators had been speaking to various people who could help them, it was evident that the underworld was “silent” about the murder, making things even more difficult.

Foreign law enforcement experts are assisting in the investigations, and police sources said Europol officers “are barely leaving our side”.

“We are conducting this investigation while being shadowed by Europol and hope that, at the very least, this will help dispel any doubts raised about efforts to solve this crime,” the sources said.