The Maltese Prime Minister is coming under increasing pressure to resign, following the arrest of his chief of staff, and the stepping aside of two government ministers.
It comes as police step up their investigation of the murder two years ago of investigative journalist Daphne Carauna Galezia.
Last night, hundreds of protesters gathered outside parliament, with some throwing eggs at Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who has been accused of impeding justice by protecting his closest allies.
Jeering demonstrators shouted "Mafia!" at the prime minister as he was whisked away by a group of bodyguards.
Keith Schembri, a close friend and chief of staff of the prime minister, resigned on Tuesday and continues to be questioned by police.
Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi also resigned, followed in quick succession by Economy Minister Chris Cardona, who said he was suspending himself pending police investigations.
Mr Schembri's departure came shortly after he was named by prominent businessman Yorgen Fenech as a "person of interest" in the investigation.
Mr Fenech was detained a week ago as he tried to leave Malta on his yacht, the day after news broke that the suspected middleman in the 2017 murder of Caruana Galizia had been arrested.
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Ms Caruana Galizia, one of Malta's best known journalists, was killed by a car bomb as she drove out of her home in October 2017.
She had alleged that a company owned by Mr Fenech, had links to high-level politicians and in her last blog, she wrote about the prime minister's aide, Mr Schembri.
Three men are awaiting trial for having set off the bomb.
The suspected middleman, Melvin Theuma, was granted a presidential pardon on Monday in return for evidence that could be used in court to convict those suspected of ordering the killing.
Local media reported that he had handed over audio recordings.
Who was Daphne Caruana Galizia?
Ms Caruana Galizia was a determined investigative reporter fuelled by outrage at the cronyism and sleaze she saw engulfing her small island nation.
Her assassination in a car bomb on 16 October 2017 at the age of 53, ended 30 years of reporting on scandals, from petrol smuggling to money laundering, that implicated members of the government and organised crime.
Three men in custody since late 2017 have been charged with her murder, but the mastermind of the crime has never been identified.
A former reporter for the local Sunday Times and the Malta Independent, Ms Caruana Galizia was best known as the publisher, from 2008 onwards, of her widely read blog, Running Commentary.
Mixing political exposes with acerbic commentary, the blog was required reading for anyone interested in Malta's byzantine and highly polarised politics.
After Ms Caruana Galizia exposed what the Panama Papers data leak revealed about government corruption in her country, news site Politico described her as "a one-woman WikiLeaks, crusading against untransparency and corruption in Malta, an island nation famous for both".
Ms Caruana Galizia was regularly hit or threatened with defamation suits, including by Mr Muscat.
That attention helped swell her readership to levels estimated to be higher than all of Malta's mainstream media combined.
At the receiving end of intimidation and threats, Ms Caruana Galizia received police protection several times but refused to be put under permanent guard, judging that it would make her job impossible.
She was survived by her lawyer husband, Peter, and three sons, Matthew, Andrew and Paul.
Additional reporting AFP
