George Abela wins libel damages

President-elect George Abela was yesterday awarded €2,000 damages after a court found he had been libelled by a press release issued by the General Workers' Union in August 2006.

The press release was issued by the union's information secretary, Charles Vella, following the removal of Josephine Attard Sultana from her post of public section secretary.

Dr Abela, the union's former legal representative, claimed he was libelled by the press release entitled Il-Kwistjoni Tal-Konferenza Ġenerali Staordinarja Tat-Taqsima Settur Pubbliku - Aktar Rappurtaġġ Żleali Mill-Media Tal-PN (The public sector section's extraordinary general meeting - more unfaithful reporting by the PN's media).

Dr Abela, a lawyer by profession, had testified that the press release declared that he had said he was satisfied with a decision of the courts in the case filed by his client Ms Attard Sultana against the GWU.

(The court had upheld a request by Ms Attard Sultana, made soon after being sacked from the union, not to allow an extraordinary general meeting of one of the union's sections to take place. The meeting was to decide on whether she would keep her job or not. She argued that the manner in which the meeting had been summoned violated the GWU's statute.)

In the press release the union also said that Dr Abela had satisfied the PN media while carrying out a disloyal attack on the GWU.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera found that when Dr Abela was informed by a Medialink reporter that Ms Attard Sultana had won her court case he told the reporter he was pleased with the outcome. But comments erroneously attributed to Dr Abela had been included in a report issued by the Medialink reporter. These comments were then the subject of Mr Vella's press release.

Dr Abela told the court he had immediately informed Medialink of the error and a correction had been forthcoming. However, although he had told Mr Vella that the article was erroneous, Mr Vella had persisted in issuing his press release.

Magistrate Scerri Herrera said it resulted that Mr Vella had knowingly made false statements about Dr Abela.