A court has dismissed a libel case instituted against the former editor of It-Torċa by Ryan Mercieca, a former secretary of the Gozo NGOs Council and PN candidate entitled “Stilla” tal-PN f’tahwida dwar Fondi tal-UE”.
The article had alleged that documents related to EU funds were not handed to the council on time, funds collected for the Community Chest Fund were not handed over and the Xagħra parish priest and Chorus Angelicus were not aware that Mr Mercieca had been nominated by the choir to sit on the council.
The article was published on 24 January, 2016.
Josef Caruana, who was the newspaper's editor at the time, said the article was based on facts which were in the public interest and the comments within it were "value judgments."
The court dismissed all three of Mr Mercieca's claims. It noted how the president of the council, Saviour Grech, even after the libel case was presented, had written to Mr Mercieca complaining that complete files has not been presented yet. It was only after Mr Grech's insistence that all the files were handed over.
As for the choir and the parish priest not knowing of Mr Mercieca's nomination, the court observed that although Mr Mercieca had produced the choir's president and secretary to back his claim, the newspaper article said that it was members and the parish priest who did not know of the nomination, and this had not been contradicted.
As for the handing over of the funds collected for the Community Chest Fund, the court noted that €524.23 raised by the Gozo Youth Council were supposed to be handed over by December 2015.
Mr Mercieca had produced a receipt from the Malta Community Chest Fund dated January 11, 2016, which was several days before the article was written.
However, witnessed from the MCCF had presented documents which showed that the receipt was actually issued on February 1, 2016.
That meant that the document presented by Mr Mercieca was tampered with and misleading, and the funds were actually handed to the Community Chest Fund after the publication of the article.
The newspaper article was therefore substantially correct, the court said. The libel complaint was dismissed.