Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has said he will resign in January following pressure from citizens for the truth about the 2017 car bombing that killed a journalist.
In a televised message, Mr Muscat said he has informed Malta's president that he will quit as leader of the governing Labour Party on January 12.
He said "in the days after I will resign as prime minister".
Hours earlier, thousands of Maltese protested outside a courthouse in the capital, Valletta, demanding he step down.
"As prime minister, I promised two years ago that justice would be done in the case of the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia," Mr Muscat said, beginning his speech, adding "today I am here to tell you that I kept my word".
Mr Muscat noted that in addition to three people arrested soon after the bombing for carrying out the actual attack, now there is "someone accused of being the principal person behind this killing".
READ MORE: Daphne Caruana Galizia: How the killing of a journalist shocked the world
He was referring to prominent Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech, who appeared in Valletta's courthouse on Saturday on charges of complicity in the murder and of allegedly organising and financing the bombing. He entered pleas of innocence.
Mr Muscat's former chief of staff Keith Schembri has also been linked to the killing.
He was among Government members targeted by Ms Caruana Galizia's investigative reporting.
Mr Schembri, who resigned last week, was arrested in the probe but later released. He denies wrongdoing
Labour has a comfortable majority in Parliament, indicating a new party leader could become premier without the need for a national election.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here