Criminal charges have been filed against Daphne Caruana Galizia following a request by Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera for the police to investigate allegations made by the columnist on her blog.

Legal sources confirmed that the charges had been filed and that the case was assigned to Magistrate Antonio Micallef Trigona. Alas, a copy of the charge sheet was not available.

A date still has to be set for the columnist to be formally charged.

Ms Caruana Galizia is expected to be accused of defamation "by means of writings" and harassment, which carry a prison term of more than a year.

Magistrate Scerri Herrera had filed a police report to "protect her integrity" from allegations made on the blog and had also abstained from presiding over two unrelated libel hearings involving Ms Caruana Galizia on February 4.

Ms Caruana Galizia's allegations against the magistrate were made on January 29 in a series of blog posts on her website, Daphne Caruana Galizia's Notebook, Running Commentary. In a series of blog entries over the past two weeks, Ms Caruana Galizia has lambasted the magistrate, arguing that aspects of her personal life were inappropriate for someone in her position.

Ms Caruana Galizia has said she was "petitioning the Chief Justice" to get the magistrate off the libel cases in question.

One of them was instituted by the head of the defunct Alleanza Nazzjonali Repubblikana, Martin Degiorgio, against Ms Caruana Galizia and the other was by the columnist against the editor of Labour's online portal Maltastar.

The Justice Minister had said he took some of the allegations levelled at the magistrate very seriously. Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici said yesterday the Commission for the Administration of Justice had noted the allegations and that the police were investigating the matter.

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