Updated with Delia's tweet

Roberta Metsola has filed a police report over a Facebook post warning the PN MEP that she could end up like Daphne Caruana Galizia.

A Facebook user with the name Josef Farrugia posted on the social network: “Be careful as you will end up like Galizia” under a One news article headlined 'Metsola was in Malta at the time that the President met the elected MEPs.'

Ms Caruana Galizia was blown up in a car bomb that went off as she was driving away from her Bidnija home in October 2017.

"Such hate speech starts with dishonest spin. The Labour Party's propaganda channel chose to publish a story about MEP Metsola, knowing full well that she had an urgent flight to catch, and the timing of the President's appointment, with traffic and airport considerations, was impossible for her," a spokesman said when contacted.

Roberta Metsola

Labour knew this fact and yet it still chose to spin it dishonestly, he added.

"One thing leads to another. This story, pushed on every Labour Party medium, escalated the matter further and led to comments equating Dr Metsola's future with Ms Caruana Galizia's assassination.

"Although Dr Metsola may not have considered this to be a death threat as such, this type of hate speech - in this case triggered by One News - is not acceptable."

The case was now in the police's hands, he said.

In a similar incident last year, a 66-year-old was sentenced to a six-month jail term suspended for one year for posting a Facebook comment saying that Dr Metsola should be burned alive.

Emmanuel Navarro had written: "All of you, especially you [Metsola], you're a national traitor. It's not a condemnation you deserve, but to be burnt alive, you dung."

PN leader Adrian Delia pledged his full support to Dr Metsola. 

Former Opposition leader Simon Busuttil pinned the threats and insults on what he described as the poison, hatred and division that Joseph Muscat lets his media sow.