Blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia was this morning found not guilty of criminal libel in a case instituted by the police at the request of One journalist Charlon Gouder.

Mr Gouder had complained that while he was reporting and filming Ms Caruana Galizia leaving the courts in a public road, she uttered what were manifestly slanderous statements about him in public. The comments were also published in Ms Caruana Galizia's blog.

The court this morning said the prosecution had not sufficiently proven its case. It had not been proven that Ms Caruana Galizia runs the site where the comments were carried. The court also referred to caselaw on what constitutes defamatory allegations which were already in the public domain, in this case a Youtube video.

In her evidence in this case, Ms Caruana Galizia had testified  that she found it strange and stupid that One TV had opted to carry comments she had made into their microphone only for their reporter to then sue for libel.

She explained that on March 2, after she had attended court proceedings instituted by Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera, she had walked out of the court house with members of her family and had been harassed by a One TV cameraman, who followed them for half an hour as they walked down Sta Lucia and then back up to Republic Street.

Ms Caruana Galizia said, she had spotted Charlon Gouder and walked towards him, intending to ask him about a reported case of his wallet having been stolen by a woman.

Mr Gouder moved away and therefore she turned to the camera and asked where Charlon Gouder had gone and whether he had gone with a prostitute, in view of a feature which had appeared on YouTube.

She had done so, Ms Caruana Galizia said, in order to stop the harassment and spoil the One footage.

 

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