Whenever she was advised to be vigilant, Daphne Caruana Galizia would always insist her two dogs would protect her, according to close friends of hers.

“I must have warned her a million times to watch her back,” a close friend told the Times of Malta.

“She would tell me that her dogs (two bullmastiffs) were always on the lookout and would immediately start barking if anyone was in close range of her Bidnija house,” she recounted.

“Maybe that is why the cowards did not dare plant the bomb at her home”, said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous.

Describing Ms Caruana Galiza as “fearless and believing in what she was doing”, another childhood friend of hers said the journalist/blogger did not give too much weight to the threats she received.

“After so many years and having enemies from both sides of the political spectrum, she got used to the threats. Once I told her she could at least get a closed circuit TV system installed at her house,” she recounted. “Her reply was short. She told me she did not want to live like a prisoner in her own house.”

None of Ms Caruana Galizia’s friends were aware of any death threats being made recently

“I never noticed anything in particular. However, I don’t know whether her family – surely those closest to her – would know more,” she said.

“I think it never passed through her mind that she would end up being killed. She knew she was doing a dangerous job and that she was making many enemies but not to the level that someone would commission her assassination,” the woman, who was in daily contact with the victim, remarked.

“She must have believed that we wouldn’t have stooped so low,” she said, adding that Ms Caruana Galizia was looking forward to continuing enjoying life and even spoke of the day she would hopefully become a grandmother.

According to her friends, Ms Caruana Galiza would always park her car in the drive-in, which meant that to plant a bomb in her car, one would have to jump over the gate and come into contact with her dogs.

Ms Caruana Galiza had been using the Peugeot 108 for many months because she preferred a long-term lease than buying a new car, they noted.

ivan.camilleri@timesofmalta.com

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