GRTU officials to pay former PN minister €5,000 for libel

GRTU president Paul Abela and its former director Vince Farrugia have been ordered to pay former developers' president Michael Falzon €5,000 in libel damages for a knee-jerk press release, issued after Falzon had testified in a separate case.

In a sentence handed down earlier this afternoon, Magistrate Francesco Depasquale held that Farrugia had abused his power as GRTU director and issued an urgent press release in which he hit out at Falzon.

The press release had been issued on the day Falzon testified in criminal proceedings against his successor as MDA president, Sandro Chetcuti. It accused Falzon of perjury and that his statement was based solely on the version of events he had been told by Chetcuti.

Falzon had testified at the request of Farrugia, after the latter had alleged that Chetcuti had tried to kill him. Chetcuti was later found to have caused only slight injury the GRTU stalwart.

But the GRTU had issued an immediate press release stating that Farrugia would take “all necessary action in relation to the erroneous and misleading assertions made, possibly constituting perjury, especially regarding the meetings referred to by Perit Michael Falzon that could not have possibly been held as stated by Mr Falzon.”

According to the press release, Falzon's “fallacious allegations and insinuations” would be shown to be fabrications by witness and documented evidence.

Falzon had expressed disappointment at the fact that Farrugia had not sought him out for his version of events before rushing to print.

Farrugia had admitted to issuing the press release without gathering all the relevant facts and without first consulting Falzon, held the court, pointing out that had the accused not abused his power as GRTU director in ordering the immediate publication and, instead, contacted the Falzon, he would have come to know the facts and avoided publicly accusing him of perjury.

In finding Farrugia guilty, the court ordered him to pay €5,000 by way of damages.