Apology over comments made on the website

I have made several comments through timesofmalta.com in recent times in relation to William P. Flynn’s own comments and to his letters to The Times. My comments related to Mr Flynn’s citizenship, voting rights and his comments about a speech made by the President of Malta, as head of state, during the visit by Pope Benedict XVI to Malta.

Mr Flynn has been offended by my comments and has expressed his intention to commence legal proceedings against me. I wish to allay these legal proceedings against me and, consequently, I desire to expunge the offence of my actions by declaring I accept without reserve that I was wrong to injure Mr Flynn’s natural human rights and his emotive and intellectual sense of patriotism, heritage and pride of his Maltese birthright, citizenship and ancestry.

This includes his rights to vote upon fulfilling, at a time of his choosing, the requirements of residency according to the provisions of the Maltese Constitution.

I apologise to Mr Flynn unreservedly for my errors and I recognise unreservedly his rights as a Maltese citizen and recant my previous comments. I also recognise it was preposterous of me to suggest that, I, a citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, without possession of Maltese citizenship, have as much right to regard the Maltese Constitution as my own, equally as Mr Flynn. I accept that Mr Flynn is a Maltese born and bred citizen and, therefore, has an unalienable right under the Maltese Constitution to Maltese citizenship.

I express my greatest remorse for my comments on several occasions accusing Mr Flynn of hurling vitriol against the President of Malta. Mr Flynn considers these latter comments a particularly great and intolerable insult and a wound inflicted by me upon his personal integrity and on his deep respect for and pride of the persona, whoever that might be from time to time, of the President of the Republic of Malta and all that the Office of the President of Malta represents to Mr Flynn in a personal, political, cultural and historical context. My comments were hurtful and calumnious and I withdraw and recant them without reserve or limitation.

I apologise to Mr Flynn, a Maltese citizen, unreservedly for all my actions and I undertake to be more circumspect in future and never to repeat them.

As a frequent guest of the Maltese islands and its people, it was particularly egregious, discourteous and disrespectful of me to even mention the word “vitriol” at all in the same sentence that included the words “President of the Republic of Malta” For this, I humbly and respectfully apologise to the President, to the Office of the President and to all Maltese citizens.