Former Labour prime minister Alfred Sant was yesterday ordered to pay €1,000 in libel damages to an ex-Nationalist Cabinet minister.

Ninu Zammit had taken exception to a speech made by Dr Sant, a candidate for the forthcoming MEP elections, and broadcast on Super One Radio in August 2007.

According to Mr Zammit, Dr Sant had declared that a portion of land belonging to the former minister had been expropriated and that he had been compensated for it whereas hundreds of others whose property had also been expropriated had not yet received compensation.

Court dismissed the plea that his speech constituted fair comment

Magistrate Francesco Depas-quale heard Mr Zammit’s land was expropriated in February 2006 at the request of the then Malta Transport Authority.

The land was valued at €102,706 and, in terms of the law as amended in 2003, the Land Department had deposited the sum in court when the official notice of expropriation was published in the Government Gazette in January 2007.

This, the court noted, was the same procedure that had been applied in the case of Mr Zammit’s neighbours whose land had also been expropriated. It was also the standard procedure adopted by the Land Department.

The court dismissed Dr Sant’s plea that the speech constituted fair comment.