Labour MP wins €12,000 in libel case

Labour MP Silvio Parnis was yesterday awarded €12,000 in damages after a court found that an article published in Il-Mument on June 25, 2006 was libellous.

Mr Parnis filed the libel suit against the newspaper's editor, Victor Camilleri and against the author of the article, Jean Pierre Debono.

Mr Parnis claimed that the article, entitled Każi dwar wirt u xiri ta' propjetà quddiem l-amministrazzjoni tal-MLP fil-każ ta' Silvio Parnis (Cases of inheritance and property purchasing involving Silvio Parnis being investigated by the MLP) was defamatory and libellous.

The court took into consideration the fact that the article claimed that information had been received by the Malta Labour Party about cases in which Mr Parnis was inheriting property from elderly persons.

According to the article, persons within the MLP had doubted how Mr Parnis, who had no employment, could acquire all this property. It said such people were insisting that Mr Parnis exhibit his accounts for the voluntary organisation he led, entitled M'intix Waħdek (You are not alone). According to the article this organisation served as a screen for illicit purposes and that Mr Parnis was abusing of the elderly.

Mr Parnis denied the allegations, insisting that the only property he had inherited was some 17 years ago from an elderly childless couple and that this was at a time when he was not involved in politics. He added that he was employed as a supervisor at the Rabat health centre. He owned property which he had acquired legally through bank loans, which he explained to the court.

The court heard a representative of the MLP deny that Mr Parnis was being investigated. It further resulted that all funds raised by M'Intix Waħdek were regularly accounted for and were utilised for needy families.

In liquidating the libel damages, the court noted that the article had not been thoroughly vetted nor had the alleged facts in it been checked. The result was that Mr Parnis had been exposed to potentially disastrous consequences to both his political and personal life.

The court, therefore, ordered Mr Camilleri and Mr Debono to pay Mr Parnis €6,000 each.