[WATCH] Magistrate is ‘screwed from birth’, says Lowell: ‘He asked for it’

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Far-rightist Norman Lowell today questioned the integrity and independence of Magistrate Francesco Depasquale, after losing his defamation claim against MaltaToday earlier this month.

Lowell lost the defamation suit he filed in 2006 against managing editor Saviour Balzan and journalist Matthew Vella over a series of reports on the aftermath of an arson attack on the house of Malta Independent columnist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

On 19 October, Lowell wrote on his online forum Vivamalta.net that he would appeal the judgement in the hope of finding “one, just one single Judge with some moral fibre. A judge who is not cowed by Political Correctness, does not ingratiate himself with the present Govt.”

Asked directly whether he thought the magistrate was government’s lackey and lacked moral fibre, Lowell first said that he could not answer that question, instead allowing his lawyer Emmy Bezzina to reply in his stead.

Lowell at his most eloquent...

But when pressed to explain his online comment where he said Depasquale was “screwed from birth” (loosely translated from the more verbose Maltese ‘Ja mnejjek min sorm ommok’), Lowell paused for a while, switched to Italian and said “he brought this on himself… he brought this on himself and he got it.”

But insisting that his client’s anti-immigrant views had nothing to do with the merits of the case, Bezzina said that the “court must be impartial and independent and should not give a prejudiced verdict.”

He added that Depasquale’s sentence had been littered with “irrelevancies” on freedom of speech.

Lowell filed his appeal and addressed a press conference in Valletta where he said that the court decision was “atrocious” and described Depasquale’s verdict as a “veiled threat to freedom of expression.”

“We hope to find a judge with a sliver of moral fibre,” Lowell said of the forthcoming court hearings.

The far-rightist added the “liberal and modern society is a tyranny worse than the middle ages” which the far-rightist said would take us back to Stalinism.  “The whole establishment, the corrupt catholic church, the two main parties and the media are out to exterminate us,” the Imperium Europa leader said.

He claimed that a media blackout and attempts to silence Imperium Europa would only make his party stronger. “We are the only voice of sanity in all this madness.”

Lowell insisted that a lack of moral fibre permeated Maltese society. “The country is disintegrating and our courts are becoming a Russian roulette with no coherence at all.”  

Bezzina argued the magistrate “chose to give precedence to his personal views on Lowell instead of looking at whether the reports were libellous or not” and that he would appeal the case constitutionally if the appeal is lost.

He also claimed that there was an “orchestrated effort” to have Lowell arrested and silenced which involved former police officers with close links to politicians.

This was not Lowell’s first rant against Depasquale in the wake of the court verdict. “The magistrate has made an ass of himself,” Lowell said in his first reaction posted on VivaMalta.net, the internet forum for his adherents. “He is to be pitied – he has been promoted to his level of incompetence. The case does not end here.”

The articles reported online commentary made by Lowell and supporters as they reacted to the arson attack, on which same night Lowell had organised a barbeque at Dwejra, not far from the Caruana Galizia residence.

A few hours after the arson attack, Lowell posted an entry on a far-right internet forum VivaMalta that read: “Yes, indeed, I have drunk to the dregs and toasted the heroes in my own incorrigible ways.” The comment was reported alongside various others made on the attacks on the internet forum.

Magistrate Depasquale noted that Lowell had never contested the assertion that he embraced anti-immigrant views. “The complainant, as a leader of an organisation known as Imperium Europa, has harsh and hard-line views on the immigration issue and whoever is involved in the defence of immigrant rights and therefore, by right, these views certainly evoke a similarly harsh reaction against him and his organisation,” he said.

The attack on Caruana Galizia’s home had been the latest in a series of similar attacks on critics of Lowell’s extremist beliefs, with previous victims including priest Pierre Grech Marguerat and lawyer Katrine Camilleri from the Jesuit Refugee Service, and also MaltaToday managing editor Saviour Balzan.

When throwing out the libel suit, Depasquale noted that Lowell’s behaviour and comments he had made on broadcast media were “not in any way acceptable in a democratic society, where diversity and multiculturalism form the foundations of Maltese society, as shown by the very language we speak”.

The former European Parliament candidate also insisted his anti-immigrant views were supported by 83% of the population. “We had 7,300 votes, by now probably doubled. We of Imperium Europa are determined to defend freedom of opinion, expression and diffusion of ideas.”