Speaker asked to investigate hacking, PN media says emails were not procured illegally

Updated at 10:50pm on Wednesday 20 October, and at Thursday at 8am with link to leaked email exchange.

Opposition leader Joseph Muscat has asked the Speaker to investigate the leak of private correspondence between him and a journalist employed with Church radio RTK, claiming the Nationalist media are in possession of a long-term exchange of emails.

Muscat said this was an illegal act of hacking and theft of information, that was now in the possession of PN media. “I am asking you to investigate the actions of the Prime Minsiter’s party, and the decimation of democracy and liberty in our country,” Muscat said.

“There is a parallel secret service investigating the media in a bid to blackmail them. Nobody is going to scare us or stop us from doing our job."

According to the Labour leader, Muscat was in long-term correspondence with RTK journalist Sabrina Agius over various subjects, namely alleged irregularities in government departments like the Malta IT Agency, suggestions for PQs, injustice she faced on her workplace, her criticism of the Labour media, and a discussion over her journalistic career.

Muscat said he suggested he encouraged her to apply for jobs with the Public Broadcasting Services and Allied Newspapers.

“The spin from people close to the Prime Minister was that I was seeking to place her into this employment. I never entered into the engagement of termination of employment of this person, but the assertion that I have influence on the Times or PBS is laughable.

“After having failed to spin this allegation by getting the independent media to carry it, a PN journalist asked me today whether I was seeking placements for people in the media,” Muscat said.

He said the PN media was in possession of this correspondence through an illegal hacking, and listed various examples in which suspicions of hacking of government emails were raised.

Deputy prime minister Tonio Borg intervened with a denial of the allegations. “We have nothing to hide and we have no objection to this investigation.”

Soon after his announcement, the head of Net News Nathaniel Attard released a 14-page document [READ EMAILS HERE] containing the email exchanges between Muscat and Sabrina Agius. The conversations relate to brief exchanges on Labour's delivery of its political message during the divorce referendum, and Agius's own problems on her workplace.

Nathaniel Attard denied procuring the privileged conversations illegally and that the emails were not from the government domain, suggesting that the provenance of the emails could have been from either the Opposition leader’s or Sabrina Agius’s personal systems.

Attard said the emails were “of public interest” and threw “a clear light” on how the Opposition leader used Sabrina Agius “for his political ends”.

Attard said the emails were procured “in a way that did not breach the law”.

Sabrina Agius, the former acting editor of Church radio RTK, is currently pursuing an industrial relations claim against her employers, over unfair and discriminatory treatment during a selection process to be appointed editor.

Sabrina Agius responded to an internal call for applications for editor of RTK and Gensillum online but was not picked for the role. The position was later advertised in an external call for applications, leading to the engagement of former Net News journalist Josianne Camilleri as the new head of news.

Agius served as acting head of news throughout the year after the departure of Leonard Callus. In her protest, she claimed she was subjected to discriminatory treatment throughout the selection process, and other incidents of bullying, intimidation and harassment from her superiors “intended to make her resign”.

Agius, who is currently still in active employment with RTK, said she resisted these attempts to make her resign. Her lawyer said in a protest she filed against the company that RTK acted differently with Agius over what it considered was her political opinion, and her affiliation in a trade union.