Daphne Caruana Galizia faced regular threats but she had the ability to put them aside, a close friend has said. 

Ms Caruana Galizia, who was killed in a car bomb last week, admitted that friends feared for her safety but never did they expect the way she had been eliminated.

Petra Caruana Dingli, a columnist and blogger for Times of Malta, explained the shock upon hearing about the murder saying at first she thought the reports were fake.

"She had regular threats but she rarely spoke about it. She had the ability to put them aside. She carried on regardless. She compartmentalised it. She was constantly hounded. In the last few years we even had to be careful where to go," she said.

“Everybody thought it might happen, not that this would happen. The violence… is horrific. Nobody really expected this.”

Dr Caruana Dingli said Ms Caruana Galizia never shared any of her big scoops with her closest friends and neither did she have some team behind her.

"Through her blog she could write far more frequently and freely. While it gave her the strength and ability to speak out... it was in a way her weakness... so if she did have certain excesses…"