Malta Today journalist Raphael Vassallo yesterday told the House Privileges Committee that he had been under the wrong impression about dates when he wrote his article last October on former opposition leader Alfred Sant's allegations that his government e-mail account had been hacked for two years.
Mr Vassallo said that having compared Dr Sant's charges with other comments, he had come to the conclusion that 2007 should have read 2008.
The Privileges Committee met yesterday to continue discussing the breach-of-privilege case brought by former opposition leader Alfred Sant against Infrastructure Minister Austin Gatt. Yesterday's sitting was mostly dedicated to the hearing of witnesses called by Dr Gatt.
Police Commissioner John Rizzo testified on oath that on September 7, 2008, the officer in charge of the police IT Section had started investigating Mitts on the possibility of a cyber attack. The police had elevated equipment to preserve possible evidence and arrested a number of persons, including Mitts employees, one of whom worked at Mater Dei Hospital. The number of suspects had been shortlisted to three, including the employee at Mater Dei.
Mr Rizzo said that due to the great volume of work involved the investigation was still ongoing, and had now been widened to a possible compromising situation on the Cairo Embassy server.
Asked by Labour MP Owen Bonnici if the articles carried by Malta Today had affected the investigations, the Police Commissioner said his people were professional enough not to let themselves be influenced by anything that appeared in the media.
Mr Vassallo confirmed that he was the by-lined author of an article carried in the paper's issue of October 12, 2008, titled "Far from a 'pack of lies', hacking has gone on for two years - Sant", but not of an article that had appeared in Malta Today on October 1, 2008.
Mr Vassallo said he had been under the wrong impression about dates. The mistake had been discussed at a regular Malta Today staff meeting which had decided that in view of the already-ongoing breach-of-privilege case there should be no correction printed. He himself had been absent from that meeting due to sickness, but had been informed of the decision by editor Saviour Balzan. On being shown a copy of e-mail correspondence between Dr Sant and Malta Today, Mr Vassallo confirmed that the only contacts had been regarding the article of October 12.
Questioned by Leader of the House Tonio Borg on his wrong impression about dates, Mr Vassallo confirmed that having compared Dr Sant's charges with other comments, he had come to the conclusion that 2007 should have read 2008.
Dr Borg queried why no correction had been issued in spite of four specific allegations bearing the wrong date.
Mr Vassallo said he had already explained why. He also said he knew about the allegations in the October 1 article that the government e-mail accounts of Dr Sant, George Vella and Anġlu Farrugia had been hacked.
Dr Gatt said he would have liked to confirm with Mitts chairman Claudio Grech, who was not present at the sitting, that after October 1, 2008, there had been no complaint of hacking from Dr Sant, Charles Mangion, Dr Vella or Dr Farrugia. Dr Sant said he had never complained about hacking, but about e-mail operational problems.
The committee, chaired by Mr Speaker Louis Galea, agreed that Dr Sant's and Dr Gatt's legal counsel would be making their final verbal submissions on March 23, following which the case would be concluded and the committee would report to the full House.