[WATCH] Chris Cardona would have been criticised just the same, Prime Minister says

Joseph Muscat is asked about the decision by Chris Cardona and his aide to drop libel proceedings against Daphne Caruana Galizia

Chris Cardona would have been criticised both if he continued with the libel case against Daphne Caruana Galizia on her brothel allegations, or if he dropped it, the Prime Minister said.

Joseph Muscat, however stopped short of taking a position on whether the Economy Minister should have persisted with the case to prove he was not at the FKK Acapulco club in Germany, on 30 January last year.

On Thursday, Cardona’s aide, Joe Gerada, ceded his libel case against the murdered journalist.

With Cardona’s own libel case on the matter having been struck off in May, it is now impossible for the mobile phone location data being held in court - which would reveal his location at the time Caruana Galizia alleged he was at the brothel - to be released.

Asked whether he believed it would have been better had Cardona persisted with the case, in order to clear his name, Muscat said there were two arguments which had been made in this regard.

“On one side, it was said that continuing to pursue a libel case against Caruana Galizia, who is now dead, wasn’t the right thing to do. But, on the other hand, the argument was also made that if the libel case was stopped, the truth wouldn’t emerge. The choice was made to drop the cases,” he said, adding that had they not done this, there would have been criticism just the same.