Court clears Mark Camilleri of threatening Rosianne Cutajar after he was charged under wrong law

Former National Book Council Chairman Mark Camilleri has been cleared of insulting or threatening former Labour MP Rosianne Cutajar.

Camilleri, the author of “A Rent Seeker’s Paradise,” a book dealing with corruption and political favours by the Labour administration, had been charged before the Qormi district court with having insulted and threatened Cutajar online. 

He was charged with threatening or insulting Cutajar in a manner which exceeds the limits of provocation - a contravention. 

The case had been filed by the police after Cutajar had filed a criminal complaint about a Facebook post written by the author, in which Camilleri accused her of cowardice, dishonesty and corruption.

She told  the court that she felt that the author had threatened her life when he took to social media to write that he would become her “worst nightmare” unless she left politics.

Camilleri’s  actions had crossed a line, said the MP. “I accept a lot of criticism, much of it unjust, but in this case I could not fail to act because if this person feels comfortable enough to openly threaten me, he can also do the same to normal people…I am not going to tolerate this language, it caused me a lot of fear.”

The offending social media post, which concluded with the statement “You all belong in jail,” included screenshots of an exchange of chat messages between Yorgen Fenech and Diane Izzo about Cutajar, after the MP had defended Fenech in an address to parliament. 

Camilleri had said the contents of the conversation showed that Cutajar had been in an intimate relationship with Fenech, who is currently indicted and awaiting trial over the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

In a judgement handed down this morning, Magistrate Simone Grech examined jurisprudence which dealt with the contraventional offence of making threats and insults. 

Cutajar’s report had clearly been prompted by the author’s social media posts, which had caused her to feel insulted and threatened, said the magistrate, pointing out that even the Inspector prosecuting the case was stationed at the Cybercrime Unit.

But having seen the applicable case law, the magistrate said that the report filed by Cutajar did not fall under the contravention cited. “The circumstances of this case, as emerging from the evidence provided, in no way fall within the parameters of this contraventional offence. 

The offence under Section 339(1) of the Criminal Code, with which Camilleri had been charged dealt with  “...Insulting words, gestures, writing or drawings addressed by the perpetrator against the person being offended, but which remain between the both of them,” observed the court. Jurisprudence had established that Facebook posts, which are available to the public, could not amount to that offence and that any  legal action that should have been taken was purely civil in nature, in terms of the Media and Defamation Act.

Having pointed this out, Magistrate Grech then proceeded to acquit Camilleri of the charge.

Lawyers Edward Gatt and Mark Vassallo assisted Cutajar.

Lawyer Joseph Mizzi assisted the defendant.

Inspector Marcus Cachia prosecuted