In libel case over Sammut obituary, MaltaToday tells court of son’s invective after Casha’s death

Ramon Casha’s untimely death left many people stunned. The chairperson of the Malta Humanists Association, a dedicated activist for gay and civil rights, and a seasoned debater both online and offline, Casha’s departure was mourned by secularist partisans and critics with whom he sparred.

Except for notary Mark A. Sammut – author of a recent polemic against the Labour administration – whose Facebook invective after Casha’s death offended those still mourning the energetic activist.

“Thank God for taking this man away… yes, I understand that we should not speak bad things of those who died... I will speak badly of war criminals (even if they have left). I will speak badly of men who batter their wives (even if they have left). Because I have a duty to speak badly of evil. Ramon Casha was evil,” Sammut posted on his Facebook wall.

And then, an hour later, an imaginary conversation between ‘Tom, Dick and Harry’: “Poor him. Let’s pray for him. Was he well known?”, “Yes. He spent his life propagating ideas in favour of abortion and euthanasia.”

His unkind exultation of Casha’s death, over the late activist’s “dogmatic liberal worldview”, did not stop there: “We should not be sanctimonious when expressing our views on evil people just because they’re now dead.”

As Facebook followers and readers smarted at the invective, MaltaToday’s lawyers presented the post in evidence in a lawsuit that Sammut’s mother Catherine filed against this newspaper over a 2011 obituary for his late father, the author Frans Sammut. The case is ongoing.

An employee of the European Parliament in Luxembourg, Sammut was a former Labour candidate whose local notoriety stems from an incident where he was caught carrying a firearm at Malta International Airport; his acquittal was overturned by the Appeals Court in 2010, with a suspended sentence.

Since then, Sammut performed a political volte-face after becoming ‘radicalised’ in the fallout of the Panama Papers. He self-published a diatribe against Joseph Muscat’s neoliberal economics, ‘L-Aqwa fl-Ewropa’ (The best in Europe) – the title mocking the Labour prime minister’s aspiration to push his country ahead of its EU counterparts.

At the book launch of his polemic, for which he roped in university academic Simon Mercieca for some intellectual ballast, only one journalist was present, from PN organ In-Nazzjon. So Sammut filed an email complaint to the Broadcasting Authority – fired off on early Sunday morning at 1:47 – demanding an “investigation” as to why PBS did not deem his book launch newsworthy.

In Luxembourg, where he now works with the European institutions, Sammut is facing an administrative enquiry for allegedly threatening, slandering and intimidating his head of unit Joseph Caruana. He has made identical counter-accusations.