MEP wants socialists’ chief to know he ‘backs wrong side’

Nationalist MEP David Casa has insisted with the chairman of the Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, that a criminal defamation complaint filed by Peter Paul Zammit – a former police commissioner – was pursued on recommendation by the Attorney General.

Casa wrote the letter shortly after the PN roped in Manfred Weber, the head of the EPP; and Labour followed with SnD head Gianni Pittella, in a war of words between both MEPs parroting the party line.

In it, Casa claims that since the AG recommended that the prosecution by the police could of a Nationalist MP reported for criminal defamation by a private citizen, it was “abundantly clear that it is a case instituted by a government hell bent on muzzling the Opposition.”

READ How the criminal defamation hearing went down

The criminal defamation was heard on Wednesday afternoon, with various witnesses pointing out that Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi had reiterated the incorrect assumptions of a report in The Times, that a data protection breach could not be assumed to have been committed by the former police chief Peter Paul Zammit, and that MaltaToday managing editor Saviour Balzan had denied receiving any confidential information from Zammit.

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil set much store by the fact that the criminal defamation was being allegedly sponsored by the State, with Weber weighing in by crying foul on what he described as “an attack on democracy”.

Criminal defamation and libel is still legal in Malta, and is often employed by politicians to muzzle journalists.