Updated 11.45am - Added PL statement
Lawyers for blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia have filed an urgent court application to preserve mobile phone records relating to a minister and his assistant, in a libel case over an alleged visit to a German brothel.
The case against Ms Caruana Galizia was filed by Economy Minister Chris Cardona and his assistant Joe Gerada, after the blogger alleged that the two had visited the FKK Acapulco brothel while in Germany on government business.
Both men deny the allegations and have insisted that they never strayed from Essen, which is some 20km away from the brothel in Velbert.
As part of the case, mobile phone company representatives are expected to testify on Transferred Account Procedure files which can shed light on calls and messages made by both the minister and Dr Gerada while in Germany.
Such TAP files are, according to international standards and protocols, stored only for 6 months, after which period they are cleared by the Home Public Mobile Network (HPMN).
Ms Caruana Galizia's lawyers have now asked the court to order the local service providers, namely Vodafone, Go and Melita, to declare whether they provided any mobile telephone service to either of the applicants or the ministry involved.
The court, presided by magistrate Francesco Depasquale, was also requested to order the deposit of and conservation under court authority of any TAP files relating to the time frame covering the dates of the applicants' stay in Germany so as to ensure that all information contained therein is not lost pending the libel proceedings.
The application was signed by lawyers Joseph Zammit Maempel and Antonio Ghio.
'Caruana Galizia dodges moment of truth yet again' - PL
In a statement, the Labour Party said that Ms Caruana Galizia had yet again failed to appear before the courts to present proof to back her allegations.
"This just goes to show how Daphne Caruana Galizia publishes stories without verifying the facts," the PL said. "So much so, that she has now presented an application to gather information, more than three months after she published her libellous articles, in a desperate attempt to justify them and sow more doubts and confusion."
The PL said Ms Caruana Galizia was using a similar strategy with her Egrant claims, "where after she published the allegations she made a public request for information and is refusing to cooperate with the inquiring magistrate."