Blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia has been ordered to pay €3,000 in damages for defaming former Illum editor Julia Farrugia.

Ms Farrugia instituted proceedings over a series of articles as well as comments posted in Ms Caruana Galizia’s blog which appeared over the course of a year from February 2010.

The court said the blogger had made several insinuations against Ms Farrugia, describing her as a “cow” and a “bitch,” while claiming that she was a prostitute who took off her clothes in public.

The blogger also persisted in describing Ms Farrugia as the daughter of Karmenu Farrugia, who had been indicated by a court witness as the person responsible for the political killing of Raymond Caruana. At the time Ms Farrugia was still a young girl.

Ms Caruana Galizia argued that she could not be held responsible for the content of her articles, as she was not the editor of the site. She also insisted that certain comments had not been made by her, but had been posted by third parties.

The court, presided over by Magistrate Francesco Depasquale, noted that the site administrator was still bound to remove any offensive comments.

In the absence of such a measure, she would be making such comments her own, the court said. Magistrate Depasquale also deemed the content of her articles to not be “fair comment”, so he found her guilty of libel.