Five hundred days since the assassination of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, the masterminds who commissioned her death are still enjoying impunity and power – this was the message that appeared at the site where she was killed in a car bomb on 16 October, 2017.

“It is evident that whoever ordered Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder is no common criminal. On the contrary, the masterminds are powerful enough to buy the silence of others,” Rezistenza Malta said in a statement.

The anonymous group that has been placing banners and posters on significant dates to keep the memory of the journalist alive, and to renew calls for justice, said journalists were never murdered for “lies”. Rather they were murdered for what they exposed.

The group also criticised the media, saying the majority of journalists in Malta behaved “as though the search for truth with regards to this crime is the exclusivity of the police force”.

The group said the media too had “the moral duty to investigate such a horrendous crime and to verify whether the police are doing everything in their power to identify and prosecute every person who was involved in the murder and whether the crime could have been prevented”.

The criticism of journalists who put their name to their stories was made from the comfort of an anonymous post.

“It’s been a long time since we last heard of the €1 million reward that had been promised to anyone who would help to identify those involved in the assassination. It is not only the case that not enough is being done to find the masterminds, but now Malta’s institutions do not even care to convince us that this is being done”.

Other banners that appeared on roads in Malta read: “Who ordered Daphne’s assassination?”