Times to present witnesses to testify on sacked journalist Ivan Camilleri’s ‘unacceptable conduct’

Allied Newspapers Limited will take legal action for defamation against its former journalist, Ivan Camilleri, for making series of untrue and libellous statements against the newspaper.

Camilleri was fired in December.

On Thursday, he filed a judicial protest claiming wrongful dismissal and seeking compensation, and that “some of the top brass at Allied Newspapers conspired and fabricated stories about me to settle what they intended to do for many years”. 

Allied Newspapers said these claims have no basis in fact and are a complete figment of Camilleri’s imagination.

 “Camilleri had committed several acts of gross misconduct spanning a number of years, including the leaking of sensitive information to third parties,” Allied, publishers of The Times, said.

In October 2019, a report published in MaltaToday alleged that Camilleri had been involved in a shoplifting incident at Valyou supermarket. After the journalist denied the allegations to the management of Allied Newspapers, the company had issued a statement in support of him.

The original 31 October editorial defence of Ivan Camilleri, now retracted

“However, after new evidence came to light in December, it transpired that Camilleri had not been honest about the incident, causing the company to retract the statement,” Allied said.

“Over the past years, there were also other cases brought to the company’s attention involving various incidents of unacceptable conduct by Camilleri in relation to his work colleagues for which he had received ample due written warnings. Several of these colleagues, past and present, are prepared to testify against Camilleri in court.”

The decision to terminate Camilleri’s employment was not taken lightly, but was forced on Allied Newspapers due to several unacceptable acts of gross misconduct, all of which amounted to a complete betrayal of the company’s journalistic principles.