An engineer who posted a comment on www.timesofmalta.com is denying he breached professional secrecy, as he was accused of doing by the Malta Resources Authority.

In a judicial protest against the MRA, engineer Patrick Attard said that on February 26 at 9 a.m. he commented on www.timesofmalta.com under the article Gozo Bishop condemns offensive behaviour at Gozo Carnival.

He wrote: “Whilst it is important to respect the different religions of the country, I find it very strange that the Bishop has time to condemn the Nadur carnival, yet no time to talk about the construction of the Nadur Cemetry where the water was poisoned and more than 5000 trees will be killed and the livelihood of the Nadur farmers endangered. It has been more than 2 years that his "sheep" had been asking for a meeting.

“Well maybe if the total value of the graves reach €3.5m then the things will come into perspective. Now where is the carnival?!”

Mr Attard claimed that till then, he had had a service contract with the MRA to study and promote the introduction of gas vehicles and other work related to electricity.

But at 11.15 a.m. on the day he wrote the comment, the authority’s director told him his service contract was being terminated because he had breached professional secrecy.

Mr Attard claimed he learned of the Nadur cemetery case through a letter by Carmen Camilleri, published in l-Orizzont and from a blog by a certain Victor Galea.

The director, Mr Attard claimed, said he had been ordered by the ministry to halt his contract immediately after it was confirmed that the timesofmalta.com comment had originated from his office computer at the MRA.

Mr Attard claimed the termination of the contract was illegal as at no time did he breach professional secrecy. Moreover, he had been hoping that his service contract with the authority would be renewed and improved due to the progress he was making.

He called on the authority to revoke its decision and pay him damages. He said he would take further action should this not be done.