As people living locally attempted to come to terms with the bombing on Monday, the news was reverberating around the world, with the attack condemned in countries near and far and the island coming under intense scrutiny.

EU officials were among the first to offer condolences to the family of Daphne Caruana Galizia, calling on the authorities to ensure her murder is solved in a timely manner and the attackers are brought to justice.

Among them were European Parliament president Antonio Tajani, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission first vice-president Frans Timmermans, European Council president Donald Tusk, European People’s Party president Joseph Daul and the chairman of the European People’s Party in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber.

Condemnation in Chinese and Japanese press

The murder also caught the attention of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who offered €20,000 to anyone with information that could lead to the conviction of Ms Caruana Galizia’s killer.

On Friday, Pope Francis joined the long list of those expressing sorrow at the death of the journalist, writing to Archbishop Charles Scicluna to assure him “of his spiritual closeness to the Maltese people at this difficult moment”.

Other entities that condemned the brutal attack were the US State Department, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Am-nesty International, Oxfam International, the Party of European Socialists, the European People’s Party and the Greens in the European Parliament.

Editorials appeared in the international press – the UK’s Financial Times and The Guardian, as well as The New York Times – and made the rounds online.

Japan’s public broadcaster NHK, China’s Xinhua News Agency and several news agencies in Canada, Australia and New Zealand carried extensive coverage of the murder, following it up with editorials which also condemned the attack.