[WATCH] Court dismisses Jason Azzopardi defamation case

Court dismisses Jason Azzopardi defamation case

A court has ruled Opposition MP Jason Azzopardi not guilty, in a criminal defamation case filed by former police commissioner Peter Paul Zammit.

In his ruling, magistrate Joe Mifsud held that Azzopardi had no intent to insult Zammit during a press conference last June over a report by the Information and Data Protection Commissioner.

The report claimed that Zammit last been in possession of a confidential file dealing with an internal investigation on police inspector Elton Taliana. The contents of that file had been used by MaltaToday managing editor Saviour Balzan as evidence in a libel suit filed against the newspaper by Taliana, but Balzan has denied that Zammit was a source, and that the IDPC did not interview him when investigating the data protection breach.

Magistrate Joe Mifsud made it clear that the court did not condemn the journalist who uses leaked files, pointing out that European jurisprudence had established that the public has a right to know if the public authorities had made use of improper methods. The duty to protect sources also required journalists to take care not to indirectly reveal their identities himself, the magistrate added. 

"The court notes that it had been shown no proof as to when the pages had been taken out of Inspector Taliana's dossier, much less who took them and passed them on to the MaltaToday and when."

Crowds of PN supporters had gathered outside the law courts in a show of solidarity with the MP when he was arraigned last week. Opposition leader Simon Busuttil had addressed the crowd, claiming that Zammit’s defamation claim was an “attack” orchestrated by the Labour government to intimidate the PN. 

In comments to MaltaToday, Azzopardi denied that the PN had turned his case into a media circus and insisted that the people turned up to support him out of their own volition.

REBĦA GĦAL-LIBERTÀ TAL-ESPRESSJONI F’PAJJIŻNA

Is-sentenza tal-Qorti dalgħodu, li fiha d-Deputat Nazzjonalista... https://t.co/T6f7pKXXBi

— Jason Azzopardi (@AzzopardiJason) April 15, 2016

“They could feel that something was off in this case, that the government was trying to silence the Opposition by threatening one of its MPs with a prison sentence,” he said.

He said that, if anything, he had been discriminated against – the police were originally convinced that Zammit didn’t have a case, but eventually decided to press charges after pressure from the Attorney General.

The Nationalist Party in a statement hailed the verdict as a “victory for freedom of expression and a defeat for Joseph Muscat’s political intimidation”.

“The baseless allegations that were leveled against Jason Azzopardi were only part of a series of government tactics to try and silence the Opposition,” the PN said. “However, we will not succumb to any type of political intimidation.” 

The government responded that the verdict proves the independence and impartiality of the Maltese courts.

“The magistrate didn’t need Simon Busuttil to organise a rowdy crowd outside the law courts to reach a decision,” the government said in a statement. “Such behaviour doesn’t reflect well on Busuttil, who s trying to portray himself as the paladin of honesty.

“One can only hope that the Opposition leader will learn from his mistakes and start conducting himself in a more mature and less partisan manner.”

READ MORE Jason Azzopardi defamation case

Azzopardi was arraigned in court over a criminal complaint by Peter Paul Zammit filed in January, over comments he made during a political press conference back in June 2015.

Azzoparid’s comments concerned a report by the Information and Data Protection Commissioner that said that Zammit, as police commissioner up until March 2014, had last been in possession of a confidential file dealing with an internal investigation on police inspector Elton Taliana. The contents of that file had been used by MaltaToday managing editor Saviour Balzan as evidence in a libel suit filed against the newspaper by Taliana, but Balzan has denied that Zammit was a source, and that the IDPC did not interview him when investigating the data protection breach.

Magistrate Joe Mifsud in his judgement today said it was not his role to investigate who leaked the file or to investigate Taliana’s history in the police force. But he said the public had a right to know when public authorities use improper methods.

Court case background

In court, data protection commissioner Saviour Cachia however had said that it had not been established when the filed had been actually leaked.

Azzopardi had, in fact, based his comments on a report penned in The Times, which had subsequently been withdrawn because of its erroneous conclusion.

“There was nothing to indicate that I had passed on any copies of the files to Saviour Balzan, something that I categorically deny,” Zammit said in a previous sitting.

Balzan had also testified, telling the court that he had presented himself at the press conference Azzopardi addressed, to confront him and tell him that what had been reported in the media was wrong because the evidence he presented in the libel suit filed by Taliana, had not been given to him by Zammit.

 “I told him that the IDPC had not even had the decency to summon me or question me, as the person who had presented the documents.”

Balzan had exhibited a copy of his testimony in the libel suit Taliana filed, where he reiterated that Taliana had multiple, strong ties to the criminal world which had been internally investigated.

For the entirety of the sitting last week, Jason Azzopardi was invisible to most people in the courtroom, shielded by a throng of lawyers observing the proceedings in support of the MP.

Azzopardi has insisted that at the time of the press conference, Zammit occupied an official post as head of CHOGM security. “The press conference was based on the article as the report had not yet been made available. 

“Zammit was not a private person [then]… the timing is clear and unequivocal. The data protection commissioner in his decision said that the Sergeant Major told him the Taliana file was requested by the commissioner of police. It also says the last request for the dossier was made while Zammit was police commissioner.”
Azzopardi had insisted that he had not crossed any red line. “I have never criticised anyone to damage them in their private capacity as a citizen, but this is a public official who was censured by the IDPC… the law is clear, that everything happening the police force is the commissioner’s responsibility, let alone a data breach.”