Criminal libel proceedings against Sunday Times editor

Saviour Balzan, as Managing Editor of MediaToday, instituted criminal libel proceedings today against Mr Steve Mallia, as editor of The Sunday Times.

Mr Mallia chose to dedicate a scathing editorial against MaltaToday in last Sunday’s issue of The Sunday Times.

In his editorial Steve Mallia accused Saviour Balzan of targeting clients in his opinion column after they had refused to advertise.

In his comment Balzan said: “Mr Mallia declaration of war against MaltaToday comes after we carried a story about a junior journalist who was sacked after posting an innocuous comment on Facebook before the ‘wanker’ university accident.  

“Mallia accused me of several things, most significantly that we target people because of their refusal not to give us adverts. This accusation is not only a very serious one, it is tantamount to accusing me of blackmail to obtain adverts.”

Balzan said he had given Mallia the chance to retract his comment and apologise. Instead all he got was a reply that he could write a letter.

Balzan also said that he had written a reply to many of Mr Mallia’s accusations replying one by one to many of Mallia’s incorrect statements and untruths.

“I am also surprised that he chose to divulge a personal communication to Dr Mario de Marco, a member on the Strickland foundation and a junior minister and someone close to the administration at The Times and Managing Director Adrian Hillman over comments by blogger and apologist Andrew Borg Cardona related to my late wife.

“I spoke to Mario de Marco because his family had been targeted  by the same blogger who works in tandem with Andrew Borg Cardona.  Borg Cardona had simply repeated what that blogger had said on his blog in the Times on line site.”

Balzan added, “The Sunday Times’ invective coincides with the present campaign against MaltaToday, driven by the concern that we have eaten into The Times, its readership and that we continue to run stories that the Times buries, and which the government simply does not want us to run.

“This is all about threatened commercial interests and readership ratings. We will be celebrating 12 years of MaltaToday next month, so it is rather gratifying to see such a reaction from The Times.”

The police report was filed this morning by Dr Charmaine Galea and presented with urgency to Inspector Micallef Grimaud. The report calls on the police to proceed against Steve Mallia according to Article 252 (1) and (3) of Chapter 9 and Article 11 of Chapter 248.