Nationalist MP denies ‘defamatory’ Facebook vote-buying allegations

Parliamentary secretary Clyde Puli has categorically denied that his brother, Ralph, had been arrested by the police on suspected vote buying.

The Nationalist candidate for the sixth district described the rumours as "extravagant defamation" and said that would be taking legal action. Puli told MaltaToday that neither his brother, nor himself, "are capable of doing such things."

Puli also said that he was compiling a list of people who had carried the allegation on their Facebook walls, and that will be passing it on to the police.

"This is purely defamatory and I'm going to file a report with the police," he said, denying the claim made on the Facebook site of electoral website www.election2013.com.

When contacted by MaltaToday, the police's communication office CMRU declined to comment.

The election2013.com website is not a media house but the property of Avante Systems, an IT consultancy firm, which in the last week of the campaign also alleged that the PN would "come out with a story" on Joseph Muscat's personal life, which was later denied by the party.