Elderly man gets suspended sentence for threatening to burn Roberta Metsola alive

A man who posted a Facebook comment saying that MEP Roberta Metsola should be burned alive has been sentenced to a six-month jail term suspended for one year.

Magistrate Grazio Mercieca found Emmanuel Navarro guilty of all charges relating to his Facebook post from last November.

Emmanuel Navarro's inflammatory Facebook post

Navarro, 66, of Naxxar had been charged with inciting hatred on political grounds, misuse of electronic communications equipment, insulting and threatening Metsola in writing, being in breach of both the criminal code and the press act, as well as breaching an earlier conditional discharge.

He had written: "All of you, especially you [Metsola], you're a national traitor. It's not a condemnation you deserve, but to be burnt alive, you dung."

The accused was also bound under a personal guarantee against a penalty of €5,000.

The pensioner found himself in the national spotlight after a number of PN MPs posted screenshots of his Facebook comment.

PN MEPs had previously come under fire for their criticism of the Labour government in a rule of law debate held at the European Parliament after the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Reacting to the sentence, Metsola said: "I will not comment on the sentence handed down to the person who threatened to burn me alive, except to say this was a case brought by the police. From my end, I had accepted his apology and asked the court that he not be jailed."

"We cannot accept people spreading hate in our society. My skin is thick enough to take whatever is thrown at me as a representative of the people, but I owe it to all the young women who are looking to get into politics to try to make this step easier for them. Politics should be a battle of ideas not of threats – and I will always stand up to hate and to misogyny."

Lawyers Franco Debono and Peter Paul Zammit were defence counsel.

Lawyers Jason Azzopardi and Karol Aquilina appeared for Metsola.