In September, a Maltese business tycoon was acquitted of complicity and criminal association in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, an anti-corruption journalist whose 2017 death sparked global outrage. Caruana Galizia was killed by a car bomb while she was in the process of investigating offshore companies with links to the Maltese establishment. Nine years later, not a single person has been held accountable for ordering her assassination.

“Everybody is much more at risk now because this signals you can kill journalists with impunity,” Caruana Galizia’s sister said after the verdict. The tragedy of Galizia’s death and the lack of justice for her murder serve as an extreme demonstration of the intertwined nature of impunity—the exercise of power without accountability—and press freedom.

In September, a Maltese business tycoon was acquitted of complicity and criminal association in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, an anti-corruption journalist whose 2017 death sparked global outrage. Caruana Galizia was killed by a car bomb while she was in the process of investigating offshore companies with links to the Maltese establishment. Nine years later, not a single person has been held accountable for ordering her assassination.

“Everybody is much more at risk now because this signals you can kill journalists with impunity,” Caruana Galizia’s sister said after the verdict. The tragedy of Galizia’s death and the lack of justice for her murder........

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