Mr Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco yesterday said a video taken by The Sunday Times of London was heavily edited to make people believe he was present for an entire meeting with undercover journalists investigating Olympics ticket sales.
The judge, who is also president of the Maltese Olympic Committee, was testifying before Magistrate Francesco Depasquale in a criminal libel case he instituted in July against The Times of Malta editor Ray Bugeja and journalist Christian Peregin.
He said his name “cropped up” in the articles published on June 18 and 19 and on timesofmalta.com, leading people to believe that “I was being investigated”.
The articles, titled No Wrongdoing in Olympic Ticket Sting and Minister Calls for Probe on Judge, reported the allegations made in The Sunday Times of London and sought Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco’s reaction to a conversation secretly filmed by undercover reporters.
Together with committee general secretary Joseph Cassar, the judge was recorded by the British newspaper talking about tickets allocated to Malta for the 2012 games.
The video, published on timesofmalta.com, was heavily edited and manipulated by The Sunday Times of London, Judge Farrugia Sacco claimed.
In the part where the undercover journalists spoke about reselling tickets, it appeared he was there for that conversation but “it’s not true – I wasn’t”. Neither was he present when the words “tempted by a £60,000 offer” were said or when “camouflaging” was used in reference to the profits from the sales.
The video was taken in April when he was attending a conference for the European Olympic Committees in Budapest.
Several authorised ticket retailers were there to reach agreements over ticket sales with Olympic committees from different countries.
At the meeting in the hotel café, he exchanged business cards with the undercover journalists and asked which ATR they represented. The journalists said they were setting up a company financed by an Arab sheik. “I felt these were amateurs and lost interest and left,” he said.
However, the video was edited so that the part where he was not present was shown first. This gave the impression that “I was present for the whole meeting”.
The Times could possibly have gained that impression too as the published transcript was chronologically wrong, he said.
When The Times asked him whether he had done anything incriminating, Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco had said no. “I didn’t do anything wrong and that is why I felt the article was defamatory”.
According to the rules of the International Olympics Committee, tickets for the games could not be sold outside the country.
However, this was surpassed by EU law that said goods and services “need to be shared”.
Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco said he was contacted by The Times on Sunday, one day before the first article was published. He then spoke to Mr Peregin on Monday and told him there were several mistakes, which were corrected in the online article.
However, these corrections were not carried over in the article published on June 19.
The judge said he had requested the IOC and The Sunday Times of London to give him the full footage and transcript of the conversation but he never got these.
“The Sunday Times of London knows that it will face consequences if it publishes the original transcript,” he said.
The IOC had never sanctioned or censured him, nor taken any action against him, he added.