Wreckage of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia's car next to a road in the town of Mosta, Malta, October 16, 2017. Rene Rossignaud/Associated Press

Malta’s prime minister said a car bomb has killed an investigative journalist on the island nation.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said the bomb that killed 53-year-old Daphne Caruana Galizia exploded Monday afternoon as she left her home in a town outside Malta’s capital, Valetta.

Galizia had been leading the Panama Papers investigation into corruption in Malta, according to The Guardian, and was even described by Politico as a "one-woman WikiLeaks" who was "shaping, shaking and stirring" Europe with her reports.

The Panama Papers refer to the 11.5 million documents that were leaked from large offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca in 2015.

Galizia's blog posts about Malta's "cronyism" sometimes got 400,000 readers a day, which is more than all of Malta's newspapers combined, Politico reported.

In April, Galizia linked Muscat and two of his aides to offshore companies with "the sale of Maltese passports and payments from the government of Azerbaijan," The Guardian reported.

Azerbaijan’s national oil company recently became a shareholder in Malta's new power plant, The Guardian previously reported.

An ambulance is parked on the road where a car bomb killed investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, in the town of Mosta, Malta, October 16, 2017. Rene Rossignaud/Associated Press

Muscat said her death resulted from a "barbaric attack" that also assaulted freedom of expression.

"In these moments, when the country is shocked by such a vicious attack, I call on everyone to measure their words, to not pass judgment and to show solidarity," Malta President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca also said, The Guardian reported.

Local media reports said Galizia had been receiving death threats, which she reported to police 15 days ago.

Galizia is survived by her husband and three sons, The Guardian reported.