An author yesterday filed a judicial protest in the Civil Court claiming that his original work had been copied by another author.

John Chircop filed his protest against Edward J. Spiteri.

Chircop declared that he had written a history book entitled "Underdevelopment: The Maltese Experience 1880-1914" on the economic history of the country within that period.

Chircop added that he had written an original work that had entailed many years of research.

His book also contained a number of graphs that he had drawn up on the basis of his research.

However, Chircop had discovered that Edward J. Spiteri had blatantly copied a number of graphs in violation of Chircop's copyright.

The copies were to be found in a book that Spiteri was about to publish, which book was entitled "Malta: From Colonial Dependency to Economic Viability 1800-2000".

Spiteri's actions, said Chircop, were abusive, illegal and in violation of Chircop's copyright.

He concluded his protest by calling on Spiteri to remove all his graphs from the work and held him liable in damages.

Dr Reno Borg signed the protest.