The son of murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia lashed out at a system of impunity in Malta that was protecting the masterminds behind his mother’s death.

Speaking in an interview with news agency AFP, Matthew said that the investigations did not get to the bottom of the murder.

“Three people have been arrested, but they are the hitmen, they are right at the bottom. We don’t know who sent them, who paid them. There isn’t any justice whatsoever yet.”

He believes that her murder was ordered by powerful individuals and it would “send a terrible lesson if only the people who pressed the button to detonate the bomb ended up in prison”.

Caruana Galizia is attending the Human Rights World Summit, which runs through until Wednesday.

He pointed out that the people whom his mother exposed in her investigative stories are “allowed to continue working in government or in business, as free as they were before”.

“The system of impunity that we have in Malta will only lead to more murders, both in Malta and within the EU,” he added.

The Caruana Galizia family has been pushing for a public inquiry.”We get the impression that there are places where the police simply do not want to go”.

Caruana Galizia complained that following the three arrests over his mother’s murder, “the government immediately started saying, ‘case closed’.”

“They want to remain focused on the petty criminal aspects of the murder. They don’t want to go into the highest level of organised crime that involve government,” he told AFP.

Caruana Galizia is among the human rights defenders calling for a change. He stands together with Anielle Franco, who is campaigning on behalf of her sister, Marielle Franco, a Brazilian activist and elected councillor who was shot dead in her car seven months ago; and Hina Jilani, human rights lawyer and founder of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, who is working to ensure a corruption-free legal system in Pakistan.

More than 150 human right defenders came together in Paris to mark the 20th anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders and the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Right to plan for the next 20 years of advancing human rights, and the struggle for change against repression, racism and discrimination.

The Human Rights Defenders World Summit 2018 comes at a time when, on an almost daily basis, a human rights defender (HRD) is reported killed, when criminalization and defamation have become standard risks, and when governments are failing their commitments made in 1998 to respect and protect HRDs, Amnesty International said.

“Governments, companies and other powerful figures are harassing, spying on, jailing, torturing and even killing human rights defenders – just for defending the fundamental rights of their communities,” Andrew Anderson, Executive Director of Front Line Defenders, on behalf of the convening organizations leading the Human Rights Defenders World Summit, said.