Opposition leader Simon Busuttil filed libel suits against four media outlets yesterday, denying that he had blackmailed Joe Gaffarena and saying that he had refused to entertain the businessman’s request for a permit for an illegal petrol station.
The suits were filed against the GWU-owned It-Torċa and L-Orizzont, and Labour’s One TV and One Radio.
Dr Busuttil said the story carried by Sunday newspaper It-Torċa entitled ‘Rikatt abużżiv Nazzjonalista’ (Abusive Nationalist blackmail), about a meeting he had with Mr Gaffarena before the 2013 general election, was “unfounded and slanderous”.
It-Torċa reported that the meeting between the two was also attended by former health minister Joe Cassar. The newspaper quoted “sources close to the PN leadership”.
Dr Busuttil is insisting that the allegation that he had met Mr Gaffarena to blackmail him and ask him for documents related to the Daewoo scandal was “a lie from start to finish”.
“It is a pure invention without any truth,” he said in a statement announcing that he had filed the four libel suits.
He said neither was there any truth in the features on One TV and One Radio, nor in L-Orizzont, which published a follow-up story yesterday.
“I filed libel suits for truth to win against the Labour Party’s lies,” Dr Busuttil said.
I filed the libel suits because I am not afraid of the truth
“I am proud that I had the courage to say no to Gaffarena when I met him before the election upon his request, and he asked me to issue a permit for the illegally-built petrol station. This is proof that I do not only believe in clean politics, but I also live it.”
Dr Busuttil added it was after he said no that Mr Gaffarena went to the Labour Party.
Accusing the PL of being spineless, the PN leader said the government immediately awarded the Gaffarenas a permit for an illegally-built petrol station as well as a €1.65 million expropriation deal.
“Under a Labour government, the Gafferenas get what they want: from a permit to operate a petrol station built illegally to millions for half a house in Old Mint Street.
“And were it not for independent media which spilled the beans, the same would have happened on the Valletta police station. This is institutionalised corruption,” Dr Busuttil said in his statement.
He attributed the media allegations to the government’s panic over the scandals “linking Castille to the Gaffarena and Zammit families”.
“The PL is lying about me to deflect attention. This move will fail because it is built on a lie. I filed the libel suits because I am not afraid of the truth,” he said.
Meanwhile, in a statement, L-Orizzont editor and It-Torċa acting editor Josef Caruana said the newspapers were sticking to their guns on the stories they had published.