Magistrate Lia refuses recusal request in Robert Aquilina threats case

Magistrate Nadine Lia has turned down a joint request made by the parties that she recuses herself from presiding over criminal proceedings against a man charged over threats made to the president of anti-corruption NGO Repubblika, Robert Aquilina.

In a sitting on Monday morning, the accused, Joseph Schembri, appeared in court to face charges relating to incitement of hatred against Aquilina, after Schembri wrote that Aquilina “deserved to be hanged from the nearest pole,” in a Facebook comment.

Lawyer Jason Azzopardi, representing Aquilina, asked the magistrate to abstain from hearing the case. Azzopardi dictated a note in court, stating that in the past few weeks his client had been confronted outside court by the magistrate’s father-in-law, lawyer Pawlu Lia, who had “aggressively” demanded Aquilina stop mentioning the magistrate’s family ties to him and to leave his family alone.

Azzopardi submitted that on the basis of that incident, his client’s right to a fair hearing would be breached should the magistrate not recuse herself.

The court turned to the prosecution, asking where it stood on the matter. The inspector replied that he agreed with the arguments made by both Azzopardi and Aquilina.

The magistrate then asked the inspector to state which article of the law he was basing his request upon, to which the inspector replied that he was unable to recall the number on the fly.

The court then proceeded to dictate a note refusing the request.

Aquilina was then called to the witness stand. He told the court that he had led and addressed a protest denouncing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, outside the Russian embassy in March 2022.

He said that after the protest, zookeeper Anton Rea Cutajar had taken to Facebook to lash out at Aquilina, posting a photo of Aquilina taken during the protest. The accused, Schembri, had commented below the post writing that Aquilna should be hanged.

Aquilina said that he had filed a police report about Schembri’s actions, explaining that he would frequently receive threats, saying that his wife and children had also been threatened and had been offered police protection.

Defence lawyer Joe Sammut told the court that his client had no intention of being violent or inciting violence, and that such phrases “were common in the South.”

The court adjourned the case to 16 January, saying that there were a lot of documents that it had to examine.