‘Claims I Was Involved In Daphne Caruana Galizia’s Murder Was Clear Insult,’ Muscat Says In Libel Case
Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat insisted that a lawyer’s social media claim that he was linked to the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia was a “clear insult” that put him “in the shoes of a killer”.
“More than bothering me, this case was very defamatory because even the harshest critics of mine had never said that I was directly or indirectly involved in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia,” Muscat said when he took the stand.
Muscat sued lawyer Christian Grima after the latter shared a video uploaded by the Nationalist Party’s youth movement MZPN, featuring Muscat’s wife talking about Caruana Galizia’s murder.
Grima drew attention to Michelle Muscat’s euphemistic phrasing when she referred to “what happened to” Caruana Galizia.
“What happened to her? Your husband blew her up. That’s what happened to her,” Grima wrote, on 2nd May 2020.
In court today, Grima’s lawyers insisted that his claim was not meant to be taken literally, but instead referred to the culture of impunity created during Muscat’s tenure that resulted in her death.
His lawyers said this was also confirmed by the public inquiry linked to the assassination.
“At no time was he saying or meaning that Muscat was sticking a bomb to a car. What he meant was that under Muscat’s leadership in government, an environment was created which led to the murder of a journalist,” lawyer Carl Grech said.
Still, Muscat disagreed, insisting that the inquiry’s conclusions were yet to be published by the time of the post and that Grima had “crossed a line”.
“What he said was totally defamatory,” Muscat claimed.
The case continues in November.
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