Courts unable to notify lawyer who claimed Joseph Muscat killed Daphne Caruana Galizia

The courts have been unable to notify lawyer Christian Grima of libel proceedings filed against him by former prime minister Joseph Muscat, with the case now pushed to October this year.

The courts have been unable to hand Grima a summons to appear in court, having first attempted to notify him at his Valletta address. A second attempt was made on 24 June, this time notifying Grima at his St Julian’s address. However, this attempt has yielded no results as of yet.

A sitting had to take place today but in light of the court's inability to notify Grima, the next hearing will now take place on 14 October.

The former prime minister initiated defamation proceedings against Grima after the latter stated in a Facebook post that Muscat killed journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Grima shared a post by MZPN that was uploaded in December 2019 with a clip from an interview Michelle Muscat gave on Xtra in August 2018. In his comment accompanying the clip, Grima said with reference to Caruana Galizia’s murder: “What happened to her? Your husband exploded her, Michelle. That is what happened.”

In the clip, Michelle Muscat said she was sorry for Daphne’s murder, more sorry than her family, because she now had to live with the “lies” the journalist had written about her.

The interview was carried out shortly after the conclusions of the Egrant magisterial inquiry were published, showing how allegations made by Caruana Galizia on the Panama company were untrue. In April 2017, Caruana Galizia had claimed that Egrant belonged to Michelle Muscat, a claim the Muscats have vehemently denied.

The magisterial inquiry had found no link between the Muscats and Egrant and no money transfers from Azerbaijan to the Muscats as had been alleged by Caruana Galizia.