Three years on, Malta awaits justice for slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia

FILE PHOTO: A protester holds a picture of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia during a demonstration to demand justice over her murder, outside the Office of the Prime Minister at Auberge de Castle, in Valletta, Malta, November 29, 2019. REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo

VALLETTA (Reuters) - When a bomb exploded on the island of Malta three years ago, killing a campaigning journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia, it sent a tremor across Europe, seeming to sum up a growing criminal threat to those who challenged corruption.

In the days after the Oct. 16, 2017, attack, family and friends questioned whether the murderers would ever be found. In the previous 15 years, there had been 27 other criminal explosions on Malta that had killed five people. Only two of the cases had been solved, police records show.