VALLETTA, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Malta's minister with responsibility for the island of Gozo resigned on Monday after reports linked her husband to the alleged mastermind of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia's October 2017 murder.
Justyne Caruana, who was reappointed minister just last week after Robert Abela was elected as the country's new prime minister, said she was resigning despite being "extraneous" to the case involving her husband.
On Sunday, a local newspaper, the Times of Malta, reported how the minister's husband, Silvio Valletta, had flown to watch a football match at Chelsea FC's Stamford Bridge stadium in the United Kingdom in the company of Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech, the alleged mastermind behind Caruana Galizia's murder.
Valletta, a former deputy police commissioner, was the lead investigator of the murder. He insists that Fenech was not being investigated in connection with the murder at the time of their trip to the UK. Moreover, he claims that he had already withdrawn from the investigation following a decision by the Constitutional Court over his possible conflict of interest.
On Monday, the same newspaper revealed how Interpol investigators had found a video on Fenech's mobile of Valletta pretending to drive Fenech's Rolls Royce. The trip and the video of the two "fooling around" showed the closeness between the two, leading to calls for Justyne Caruana's resignation as her position was untenable.
Caruana said in her resignation letter that she wanted to defend her name from allegations being made.
Prime Minister Abela told parliament he had accepted her resignation and thanked Caruana for her work.
Abela later told reporters that Caruana's resignation "is an example we set and the benchmark the government must have."
