Daphne Caruana Galizia's son Matthew hit out strongly this morning following the car bomb murder of his mother yesterday afternoon.

Matthew Caruana Galizia is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. He was at home when a bomb blew up his mother's car as she drove off.

In a Facebook post, Mr Caruana Galizia wrote:

"My mother was assassinated because she stood between the rule of law and those who sought to violate it, like many strong journalists. But she was also targeted because she was the only person doing so. This is what happens when the institutions of the state are incapacitated: the last person left standing is often a journalist. Which makes her the first person left dead.

"I am never going to forget, running around the inferno in the field, trying to figure out a way to open the door, the horn of the car still blaring, screaming at two policemen who turned up with a single fire extinguisher to use it.

I looked down and there were my mother’s body parts all around me. I realised they were right, it was hopeless

"They stared at me. “I’m sorry, there is nothing we can do”, one of them said.

"I looked down and there were my mother’s body parts all around me. I realised they were right, it was hopeless.

“Who is in the car?”, they asked me. “My mother is in the car. She is dead. She is dead because of your incompetence.”

"A few hours later, while that clown of a Prime Minister was making statements to parliament about a journalist he spent over a decade demonising and harassing, one of the police sergeants who is supposed to be investigating her murder, Ramon Mifsud, posted on Facebook, “Everyone gets what they deserve, cow dung! Feeling happy :)”

"Yes, this is where we are: a mafia state where you can now change your gender on your ID card (thank God for that!) but where you will be blown to pieces for exercising your basic freedoms. How did we get here?

"A culture of impunity has been allowed to flourish by the government in Malta. It is of little comfort for the Prime Minister of this country to say that he will “not rest” until the perpetrators are found, when he heads a government that encouraged that same impunity.

"First he filled his office with crooks, then he filled the police with crooks and imbeciles, then he filled the courts with crooks and incompetents.

"If the institutions were already working, there would be no assassination to investigate - and my brothers and I would still have a mother.

"Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri, Chris Cardona, Konrad Mizzi, the Attorney General and the long list of police commissioners who took no action: you are complicit. You are responsible for this."