Police asked to investigate man over acid 'threat' to Repubblika president

The police have been asked to investigate a man over a Facebook comment stating that he would have doused the president of anti-corruption NGO Repubblika with acid had he stuck anything to his property.

The comment was posted in reaction to a third party’s repost of a photo showing Robert Aquilina affixing a sign which reads “Joseph Muscat il-Prim Korrott”, to the door of Muscat’s private office.

The comment appears to read, in Maltese: “With all due respect, were a clown like this guy to stick rubbish on my property, I would throw a can of acid at him. What right does he have to vandalise people’s doors? Who does this can of trash think he is?”

Aquilina posted a screenshot of the comment, which appears to have since been deleted, together with a photograph of the man who posted it, posing with Prime Minister Robert Abela.

“‘A can of acid,’ exactly what Mafia assassins have used in the past to kill and completely annihilate those who stand up to them,” Aquilina wrote.

He went on to say that he had reported the matter to the Commissioner of Police on the grounds of incitement to hatred and violence. “I expect him to investigate and take the necessary action without delay,” Aquilina wrote, together with a message of resolute defiance to such threats and attempts to stop him and Repubblika from continuing to seek the truth and justice.