Hunters' president loses libel case against The Times

A court yesterday ruled that a cartoon in The Times of Joseph Buttigieg, the President of the Federation of Hunters, Trappers and Conservationists (FKNK), was not libellous.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera threw out Mr Buttigieg's claim after a cartoon appeared on September 3, 2007 caricaturing him as a hunter looking at an osprey with shotgun in hand, accompanied by the words "Forget it Joe, it's five minutes past three".

The suit was filed against editor Ray Bugeja and company's managing director Vincent Buhagiar as the newspaper's "printer".

Mr Buhagiar rebutted saying that he ought not to have been sued as no libel action existed against a newspaper's printer when the editor was known.

According to Mr Buttigieg, the drawing was libellous for it insinuated that, in his capacity as president of the federation, he had been hunting a protected bird in the afternoon even though such hunting had been prohibited by regulations issued that September.

The court was told that the regulations prohibited hunting after 3 p.m. and that they were aimed at protecting birds of prey.

Mr Buttigieg added that he had always issued press releases against the hunting of protecting species and it was for this reason that he felt libelled by the caricature, which was not funny.

The court ruled that a caricature could be as libellous as the written word, and that a drawing could be more effective than an article. The ordinary reader who saw the caricature would immediately identify Mr Buttigieg in it. The test was whether the ordinary reader would understand that the caricature was defaming Mr Buttigieg.

Magistrate Scerri Herrera found that the caricature was not libellous for, if anything, it depicted Mr Buttigieg as being a lover of the hunt who did not shoot protected birds such as ospreys. The drawing depicted Mr Buttigieg as holding a shotgun pointing at the ground and not at the bird.

The court therefore ruled that the caricature was not libelllous and dismissed the action against Mr Bugeja.

Magistrate Scerri Herrera also concluded that Mr Buhagiar ought not to have been sued as the editor of The Times was known.