Caruana Galizia says source of alleged Mizzi affair story was ‘high-ranking police officer’

Blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia says such ‘situations are very hard to verify’

Blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia
Blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia

A “very high-ranking police officer” was the source of an allegation that Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi had conducted an extramarital affair with his communications coordinator, Malta Independent columnist Daphne Caruana Galizia has told the court.

The unnamed police officer has since taken early retirement.

Caruana Galizia was testifying before Magistrate Francesco Depasquale as the defendant in a libel suit filed by Mizzi’s communications coordinator Lindsey Gambin, about an entry on her online blog in November last year.

Caruana Galizia alleged that the two were conducting an extramarital affair, something which both Mizzi and Gambin vehemently denied. Mizzi and his wife have also filed a separate libel suit and a criminal complaint with the Police.

Lawyer Andrew Sciberras, for Gambin, asked Caruana Galizia whether she had verified that Gambin had been involved in an extramarital relationship.

“These situations are very hard to verify,” replied Caruana Galizia, who went on to refer to the fake Facebook account allegedly created by Labour MP Luciano Busuttil “to woo females”. She said, that the account had been deleted the moment she confronted him about its existence.

“My source is a very high ranking police officer who has since taken early retirement,” Caruana Galizia limited herself to saying. “I had no reason to doubt him. He told me he had seen them in the bar, drinking champagne and smoking cigars. It was at night, they were sitting right next to each other and their body language was not that of a minister and a PA. They were also kissing.”

Caruana Galizia also said that one evening, she received a phone call from an AFM officer at midnight to tell her that Mizzi had been seen at a bar in Valletta with a woman. Caruana Galizia proceeded to send her source a picture of Gambin and the source confirmed.

“If a married man is out drinking with a woman while his wife is abroad, they should be aware that they are not invisible.”

Sciberras pressed the defendant on the fact that this was only a rumour. Were he to publish a rumour about her would that not be defamatory, the lawyer asked.

This was a matter of public interest, argued Caruana Galizia. “We are talking about a minister, who is also very close to the Prime Minister and who since March 2013 has not stopped making mistakes,” she insisted.

Caruana Galizia also alleged that Mizzi had attended a wedding of a ONE employee “accompanied” by Gambin, a former ONE journalist.

“This is absolutely not professional behaviour.”

The court was requested to allow the evidence exhibited in the case filed by Mizzi against Caruana Galizia also be admitted into the acts of this case, which continues in January.