Magistrate rules for Delia in ‘mafia conspiracy’ missive against MaltaToday colunmist

A magistrate has dismissed a libel case filed by MaltaToday columnist Raphael Vassallo against blogger Manuel Delia, over an article in which the latter accuses Vassallo of being “part of the mafia conspiracy that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia” and of “covering up for the mafia.”

In her judgement, Magistrate Rachel Montebello disagreed with Vassallo that Delia’s article was an insinuation that the MaltaToday columnist had materially participated in the mafia responsible for the murder of Caruana Galizia.

Vassallo had filed for libel over a blogpost published by Delia in October 2019, in which he suggested that “Unwittingly, or perhaps because he is perhaps part of the mafia conspiracy that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia, he perpetrates the myth that arresting and punishing the triggermen resolves the crime. That is how he (and others) cover up for the mafia, thereby being part of it.”

The MaltaToday columnist, who the court noted has 25 years of experience in journalism, had argued that the article in question had made a very serious allegation and was built on deception and lies. He denied making the argument that punishing the triggermen resolved the crime, and said that Delia had created a false narrative, based on untruth. These lies had left a social impact on the columnist, who had also feared for his safety.

Magistrate Rachel Montebello, deciding the case, observed that in other articles of his, Vassallo had voiced disagreement with the assertion that freedom of expression in Malta was under threat. “The position of the defendant (Delia) is, evidently that he interpreted the plaintiff’s declaration… as a manifestation of the attitude that the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia is an ordinary murder, as well as an expression of disgust to the hypothesis… that this murder represents a concrete threat on the part of the State against freedom of expression.”

In her judgment on the matter, the magistrate made it clear that her duty in this case was not to decide which of the two conflicting theories expressed by the parties are correct, but whether or not the article in question is defamatory to the plaintiff.

From the context of the defendant’s publication, the court said it immediately understood that the passage which triggered the court case was an expression of the defendant’s judgment on statements made by the plaintiff himself, cited verbatim.

The court also said it disagreed with Vassallo in that an objective and complete reading of the article could in no way be taken as a criticism that leads to the insinuation that he materially participated in the mafia or other criminal organisation which was responsible for the murder of Caruana Galizia.

An ordinary reader who read the whole article could come to the conclusion, “without much difficulty” that the references to Vassallo were only there to personify Delia’s theory, a metaphorical assimilation by which the defendant, a leading civil society activist and someone who the plaintiff himself considers to be an authority on the case…felt that he should spell out and express his conviction about the involvement of the mafia in this murder.”

The court also said that the article in question had a factual basis that sustained the defendant’s opinion that the negation of involvement in criminal conspiracy could be taken as omerta’.

Delia also had the right to express his conviction that Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed by a criminal organisation that lives in obscurity and which is implicitly helped by every person, including journalists, who propagate the opinion that she was killed only by the three persons who placed the bomb in her car, said the magistrate.

Ruling that the statements issued by the plaintiff were not defamatory, the court said that neither were they so extreme as to seriously damage the plaintiff’s reputation. The case was dismissed with costs.