Lowell defamation suit: Balzan says he did not force anyone to invent a report

MaltaToday managing editor Saviour Balzan told a court he is legally obliged to take responsibility for any article that is published because he is the registered editor - "I know what the law says."

In a defamation suit filed against him by Lowell, the plaintiff’s lawyer asked Balzan who had been responsible for choosing the reports’ titles and photos.

Lowell filed for libel against Balzan, Matthew Vella and former MaltaToday deputy editor Kurt Sansone, over three articles he claims were part of a “coordinated and malicious strategy” against him.

The items included a front page by Sansone entitled ‘Arsonists attack Daphne on same night Norman Lowell organises BBQ’, a story by Vella entitled ‘Lowell’s neo-nazis hit out at press after arson attack’, and the editorial under the heading ‘Get the bastards now, before it is too late’.

Lowell claims the articles placed him in danger when it was alleged that he was involved in the arson of Independent columnist Daphne Caruana Galizia’s house, that he was a neo-Nazi and a person who instigated racist violence, and that he was a “bastard” and a threat to democracy.

Balzan said he took responsibility for the articles written by journalists. “I never pushed Sansone to write any story.”

Norman Lowell took the stand in the case, denying he was the author of the posts in the website VivaMalta.com, from where MaltaToday had reported the messages placed on the internet forum after the attack on Caruana Galizia’s house was carried out.

One of the posts had read, “Yes indeed… I have celebrated in my ways.” Lowell denied being the author of the post published minutes after the arson attack. “I never owned the forum VivaMalta.com, I am just a contributor. I don’t manage any site. Imperium-Europa.org is a site that gives my political history since I started fighting for my country and my nation. It is based in America and run by a webmaster.”

Lowell said VivaMalta.com as being of ‘politico-cultural’ nature. “On that site, we comment about important issues. We don’t lose ourselves commenting about a 2c reduction in fuel prices,” Lowell said.