Papaya Ltd slaps gagging order on Times of Malta

Times of Malta has been slapped with a gag order after sending questions about an e-money company named Papaya Ltd.

Through their legal team, Papaya stated that the article the Times was going to publish would breach the company’s anti-money laundering secrecy laws.

A hearing on the temporary injunction was slated for Monday in front of Judge Lawrence Mintoff, but the lawyer who filed the injunction, Damien Degiorgio, was abroad. The hearing has been postponed to 13 August.

It appeared that the company was not notified about the Times’ objection.

The newspaper stressed that preventing a journalist from publishing a story is illegal and violates journalists’ right to freedom of expression. The Times further stressed that the questions sent to the company were in the public interest, claiming that Papaya was abusing the law to muzzle journalism.

The injunction targeted journalist Jacob Borg, Allied Newspapers Ltd, and Times of Malta, represented by executive director Alex Galea and editor Herman Grech respectively.