Former RTK journalist seeks police investigation on email leak

The former RTK journalist Sabrina Agius has asked the Commissioner of Police to investigate the theft of information that resulted in her personal email correspondence with Opposition leader Joseph Muscat being leaked to the press.

Agius’s lawyers said they were seeking an investigation under the Computer Misuse Act.

Church media house Media Centre sacked the former acting editor, after copies of her private email conversation with Opposition leader Joseph Muscat were published by Nationalist party media and became the subject of hacking allegations raised by Joseph Muscat in parliament.

Agius is currently pursuing a complaint against Media Centre in the industrial tribunal. Labour leader Muscat has asked the Speaker to investigate the leak of private correspondence between him and a journalist employed with Church radio RTK, claiming the Nationalist media are in possession of a long-term exchange of emails.

Muscat said this was an illegal act of hacking and theft of information.

It is unclear whether the email conversation, between Agius's private gmail account and Muscat's private account were lifted directly from a personal computer or hacked in externally.

The emails show Muscat in a long-term correspondence with RTK journalist Sabrina Agius over various subjects, suggestions for PQs, injustice she says she was facing on her workplace, her criticism of the Labour media, and a discussion over her journalistic career.

The head of Net News Nathaniel Attard released a 14-page document [READ EMAILS HERE] containing excerpts of the email exchanges between Muscat and Sabrina Agius. Nathaniel Attard denied procuring the privileged conversations illegally, and that the emails were “of public interest” and threw “a clear light” on how the Opposition leader used Sabrina Agius “for his political ends”.

He said the emails were procured “in a way that did not breach the law”.