Joseph Muscat’s libel case dismissed after no-show

Updated at 14:25 with Joseph Muscat statement

A lawyer who published a Facebook post accusing former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat of blowing up journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has been cleared of libel after neither Muscat nor his lawyer showed up for the case.

Lawyer Christian Grima made the claim in a post published on 2 May in reaction to a video clip of Muscat's wife Michelle talking about Caruana Galizia's murder on Xtra.

In the clip, Michelle Muscat said that she was sorrier about "what happened to her [Daphne]" than the journalist's own family. "I told myself 'now I'm going to have to live with her lies'," Michelle Muscat had said in the interview.

The Facebook comment made by Christian Grima

 Reacting to the comment, Grima wrote on his Facebook page: "Your husband blew her up, Michelle. That's what happened to her." 

The former Prime Minister subsequently sued Grima for libel, describing the claim as “totally false.”

But the case never got off the ground, with bailiffs initially being unable to serve the defendant with the notification of his court date.

Muscat had also failed to turn up for a previous sitting in June, with Muscat’s lawyer Pawlu Lia informing the court that he had told his client not to attend after checking the case records in the court registry and finding that Grima had not yet been notified. The court had then ordered that a notice of summons be published in a local newspaper.

When the case was called this morning at 9:50am, both Joseph Muscat and Pawlu Lia did not turn up, despite court messengers calling them several times.

Grima’s lawyer, Carl Grech, then asked that as the plaintiff and his lawyer did not turn up, the case against his client be dismissed. The court postponed the case until 10:30am as a last chance for the parties, but when it was called again at that time and neither Muscat nor his lawyer appeared, Grech repeated his request to have the case dismissed.

Magistrate Rachel Montebello decreed thus, after noting the absence of the plaintiff and his lawyer from the sitting, in spite of the court having postponed the sitting to give them the opportunity to attend late. The case was dismissed.

Muscat claims no-show was due to an 'oversight'

In a Facebook post, that has since been removed, Joseph Muscat said that due to an "oversight", both him and his lawyer were unavailable to appear in court today.

The removed Joseph Muscat Facebook post

He said that no deferral was requested, and that the case was dropped after a request from Grima.

"There was no intention from our end for this to happen, following months of waiting for Grima's summoning. I was present for all sittings. Unfortunately, this is the system,” Muscat had said.

He said in conclusion that despite all, the statement by Grima remains false.