Updated | Sant's 'secret' threat is public on Caruana Galizia's blog, Casa says

The threat against Daphne Caruana Galizia referenced by Labour MEP Alfred Sant on Xarabank yesterday is public on the slain journalist’s blog, Nationalist MEP David Casa said.

Casa said that Sant was either being "intentionally deceitful" or "incredibly confused" when he said that the threat was not on the laptop that was handed over to the police – explaining that a screenshot of the threat was public on the website.

Sant had said he was shown a threatening email sent to Daphne Caruana Galizia after 2015 by a Dutch journalist, which he said was “definitely not in the laptop” handed to police investigating the murder of the journalist.

Sant said on Xarabank on Friday evening a Dutch journalist had approached him in Brussels on the investment of Crane Currency in Malta, and showed him a threatening letter in Maltese sent to slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia after the year 2015.

Casa said that he discovered the identity of the journalist, contacted him, and found out that the threat he was referring to is actually in the public domain. “You don’t need Daphne’s laptop to know about it, Dr Sant. Any device with an internet connection will do."

“This email is definitely not in the laptop deposited in the Courts of Law. How did this journalist come in possession of this email?” Sant asked on Xarabank.

“The devious implication Alfred Sant was attempting to make is that the police would not know about this threat,” Casa said. "It is outrageous that the Labour Party has resorted to these cheap tricks to justify the train wreck that is the investigation into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination."

The Maltese police has requested that the inquiring magistrate retrieves a laptop used by the journalist in bid to uncover any evidence leading up to the reason for the murder, but family members have said they would refused to hand over the computer.

Now murder suspect Alfred Degiorgio “il-Fulu” has filed Constitutional proceedings claiming a breach of fair trial over claims that the family of murdered journalists Daphne Caruana Galizia did not hand over a laptop to investigators.

Lawyer William Cuschieri, acting on behalf of Degiorgio – one of the three accused in the assassination of Caruana Galizia – said that investigating officials had not analysed Caruana Galizia’s laptop for clues about the murder because the family are refusing to hand it over to the police. Degiorgio’s lawyer said it was important that the laptop is analysed as it “could contain sensitive information about third parties responsible for this murder.”

“Strangely and unfortunately, it appears that the other parties or some of them are letting the family of Daphne Caruana Galizia dictate what evidence is gathered,” Cuschieri said, pointing out that the murdered journalist’s sister had publicly stated that the laptop was in her possession and that she wasn’t going to pass it on to the Commissioner of Police; as well as the fact that one of Caruana Galizia’s sons had publicly declared that he would “burn my mother’s laptop in front of the police, if I knew where it was.”

MEP Alfred  Sant also accused former PN leader Simon Busuttil and his allies of undermining Malta’s democratic institutions.

“Their strategy is to portray Malta as a Mafia state with a corrupt government that does not respect the rule of law. This same clique is providing foreign journalists with information which puts the Maltese and Gozitan people in a bad light.”

Sant described the actions as “anti-patriotic behaviour” that was dangerous because it depicted all Maltese and Gozitans as corrupt and violent.  “They are giving a very bad reputation to Malta.”

Sant said that this was negatively affecting economic activities in Malta like financial services and igaming and increasing the pressure against Malta and other EU member states to renounce tax sovereignty.