An article in The Times reporting on a murder in December 1999 was this morning found by an appeals court to have been within the limits of responsible journalism.

Three appeals had been filed by Ivan Formosa against judgments which had found that three local newspapers, including The Times, had not published libellous material.

Mr Formosa had complained of the manner in which the newspapers had reported police investigations into his brother's murder in Qawra in December 1999.

Mr Formosa had claimed that the articles, which described his brother as a known homosexual, were untrue and libellous as they tarnished his brother's reputation.

The first court of criminal jurisdiction had concluded that the articles could not be deemed libellous.

On appeal, Mr Formosa claimed that he felt aggrieved by that part of the first court's judgment which had found that the simple fact that a newspaper proclaimed a person to be a homosexual was not in itself libellous.

The Court of Criminal Appeal found that none of the three articles had been written in a sensationalist manner. All had reported how the body of Mr Formosa's brother had been found and the line of investigation the police were pursuing.