PN organ retracted report of murder suspect’s suicide attempt after libel case

The Nationalist Party organ In-Nazzjon had to publish a retraction of a 2017 news report in which it claimed that George Degiorgio – charged with the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia – had attempted suicide in prison.

The story published in December 2017 came just over a month since Degiorgio ‘ic-Ciniz’ was arrested his brother Alfred ‘il-Fulu’ at the gang’s hangout at the so called potato shed on the Braken quays in Marsa.

Degiorgio, who is charged with the murder together with Alfred and Vincent Muscat ‘il-Kohhu’ was quick to file libel proceedings against Joe Mikallef, the Nazzjon reporter who is now fronting Net TV’s Sorsi Infurmati – or ‘Informed Sources’, an investigative journalism round-up which, as the name implies, is often cavalier about using unnamed and unattributed sources.

In his report, Mikallef wrote that Degiorgio had attempted a suicide attempt using the bedsheets in his prison cell, before the timely intervention of prison warders.

Mikalef quoted a security official who was standing guard next to the three prisoners.

But Degiorgio filed for libel on 19 January, 2018. And on the second sitting of the case – on 22 March, the two parties announced they were negotiating a settlement to the case, which meant In-Nazzjon would not defend its report.

In May, the newspaper published a retraction of its newspaper report on page 2, in which its editor “accepted as fact a declaration by George Degiogio that he denied the information published… and that the editor was retracting the story, and apologises for the inconvenience caused.”

The libel case was ceded after the publication of the statement.