A police inspector blamed by a newspaper for having left an innocent man behind bars has been vindicated by a court of appeal, which found the article defamatory in his regard.
Inspector Elton Taliana had sued it-Torca editor Alexander Farrugia over a story titled ‘Young man unjustly ended up in prison…inspector knew of the error’ published on August 11, 2013.
The report related to a hold-up at a Birkirkara store one Sunday evening on August 4, 2013. Three days later, a young man called Darryl Luke Borg was arrested, arraigned and denied bail after pleading not guilty to the robbery.
The following day, Inspector Taliana received information that the true culprit was Roderick Grech, known as ‘ic-China’, who has since been murdered in an incident over which Etienne Bartolo, known as ‘il-Vojt’, is currently facing criminal proceedings.
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After obtaining an arrest warrant, Inspector Taliana had interrogated the alleged culprit who had indeed confessed to the hold-up and was sentenced upon his arraignment later that same day. The inspector had then informed his superiors who immediately released Mr Borg from prison.
The case had caused an uproar in local media, generating debate and anger over the fact that an innocent man had been illegally detained for more than one day before the truth came to light.
The report published by it-Torca had laid the blame on Inspector Taliana, alleging that he had taken two days to inform his superiors when he knew that an innocent man was behind bars.
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The magistrate's court hearing the libel case against the newspaper had rejected the inspector’s claim, noting "a serious failure in the conduct of the police investigations" which had resulted in the illegal arrest of an innocent man.
However, the court of appeal, presided over by Mr Justice Anthony Ellul, declared that the evidence showed otherwise. Inspector Taliana had first obtained an arrest warrant against Mr Grech and had interrogated him so as to verify the facts as passed on by the informer before actually issuing charges against him.
The newspaper’s allegation that for two whole days the applicant had failed to release the innocent man from jail, was nothing more than a "sweeping statement" far removed from the truth, the court said.
The article had given no credit to the work done by inspector Taliana, whose investigations had brought the true culprit to justice. As soon as the perpetrator Mr Grech had confessed to the hold-up, Inspector Taliana had wasted no time in arraigning the man and informing his superiors. This was done within a matter of hours.
For these reasons the court revoked the judgment of the first court and condemned the editor of it-Torca to pay €500 in damages over the defamatory article, together with the costs of both suits.