A magistrate this morning rejected a libel case filed by the hunters' association over a comment posted by a reader of timesofmalta.com, saying the comment never directly attacked the federation but was directed at hunters and trappers in general.

Magistrate Francesco Depasquale was ruling in a criminal libel case instituted by the Federation of Hunters, Trappers and Conservationists (FKNK) against Edward Curmi, a timesofmalta.com reader who posted a comment under a story titled Hunters vow action over government policy, posted online on August 30, 2011.

The story was about the FKNK's intention to embark on a "different course of action" over the government's attempt to gradually eradicate hunting and trapping. It was reporting on a strongly-worded statement issued by the federation in which it claimed that the government was being "led by the nose by Birdlife Malta".

Reacting to the story, Mr Curmi had posted the following comment: "Now that is going to be a difficult one. The hunting lobby has resorted to just about everything. Intimidation, arsonry, vandalism, lobbying, threatening, beatings etc, the list is long, to say nothing about the blatant breaking of hunting and trapping law every single day. Thinking something new and original is really going to take a lot of imagination. The open season has not even started and it is shooting shooting galore already in case nobody noticed."

A few days later, the federation filed a criminal complaint arguing that what Mr Curmi had written amounted to defamation, leading to Mr Curmi's arrest by the police.

The court heard the federation saying that it represented some 80 per cent of hunters and trappers and the reference to the hunting lobby was therefore directed at the federation.

However, Magistrate Depasquale noted that the FKNK was not the only institution that represented the hunters so it could not be in any way construed that the comment was referring to the FKNK. He said there was no direct reference to the federation in the comment posted so he ruled that no evidence was brought to substantiate the complaint it had filed.

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