Charles Cirillo (November 22) wrote: “Finally, may I again remind Mr Zammit that his past reasoning that ‘up to now’ we have no official Maltese paedophile priests is nowadays an unequivocal confirmed myth.”

First of all, it was not my past “reasoning” but my past reference to facts. This was indirectly admitted also by Cirillo when he quoted me as saying “up to now”, which can now be translated “up to then”. Then, yes, we had no Maltese paedophile priests. It was a fact, not a myth! It is a principle of law that a person is deemed innocent until proven guilty. So much so that the punishment is awarded not when one is alleged to have committed a crime but when one is convicted of that crime.

Besides, before conviction, the accused has the moral and civil right to be presumed innocent by one and all, while the burden of proof lies with the prosecution. In criminal cases, unlike civil ones, the proof has to be ‘beyond reasonable doubt”.