Joe Borg cleared of blackmail, but guilty of defamation

Joe Borg, 75 of Swieqi, was handed a six-month jail term suspended for two years for the defamation of Rita Schembri, but acquitted of blackmail in relation to an email he had sent last December to the permanent secretary.

Borg was found guilty of defaming Schembri, the chief of the internal audit and investigations department in the OPM, by Magistrate Anthony Vella.

He was cleared of the most serious of charges - blackmail - but  announced that he will be appealing the judgment.

Borg was charged of having sent an email to Schembri, who had leased his restaurant in the past, to "redeem" herself and pay outstanding commercial dues to third parties who had subleased his restaurant from Schembri. Schembri reported the email, which threatened to report the matter to OLAF, on whose supervisory board she sat on until earlier this week, to the police for criminal prosecution.

In his defence, Borg had argued that Schembri had to answer before the law, having been already found guilty of defrauded him by illegally subletting his property to two other people. "Her position as a senior civil servant and also as a senior official who sits on the EU's anti-fraud agency's supervisory body OLAF, had to be put into question," Borg's lawyer Edward Debono had said. "My client was wrongly charged and without putting any onus on the police, and from what emerged from this case, it was clear that there was a hidden hand to have him charged."

Borg was sent to prison for five days when a court of criminal inquiry presided by Magistrate Consuelo Herrera, refused him bail. His defence lawyer claimed "someone put pressure on the Attorney General."