It Was Hatred, Not A Joke, Repubblika Activist Says After Man Charged €300 For Threatening To Hang Him
After a man was charged €300 for threatening to hang him, Repubblika activist Robert Aquilina insisted that his case is completely different from the one that Bis-Serjetà satirist Matthew Bonanno is currently facing in court.
“I don’t want to be a hypocrite and when I saw this case marked in my diary today, I asked myself this same question,” Aquilina said when asked by Lovin Malta whether he views any similarities between his case and the one Bonanno is facing for joking that he intends to bomb River of Love’s church.
“However, the two situations are completely different. Matthew Bonanno doesn’t feel hatred against River of Love. He disagrees with them, as I do, but he doesn’t intend to bomb them.”
Joe Schembri, 45, was today charged €300 for a Facebook comment stating that Aquilina should be “hanged from the nearest lamppost”, with magistrate Nadine Lia dismissing the accused’s defence that he was just using a metaphorical phrase which is commonly used in the south of Malta.
River of Love pastor Gordon-John Manche
Aquilina argued that Lia’s ruling shows Schembri really did intend to hang him from a lamp post.
“His lawyers argued that people from the south speak like that but I’m from Siggiewi and don’t speak like that and don’t think the people of the south do either.”
From a legal point of view, he noted that a crime is composed of two components – the actus reus, or the act itself, and the mens rea, or the intent to commit a crime.
“In my case, there was both actus reus and mens rea. In Matt Bonanno’s case, there is no mens rea.”
“The truth is that people believe we’re traitors and that traitors must be hanged, beaten up or whatever. Lies have been spread against us, just as when Joseph Muscat claimed I coordinated the police search in his home, and anger and hatred have grown as a result.”
The Repubblika activist described himself as the victim of a “systematic campaign of hatred”, to the point where police officers have revealed to him that they monitor social media for threats against him more than they do for anyone else in the country.
Aquilina added that he lets several comments slide, sometimes even against the police’s advice, if he doesn’t feel the commenter intends to physically harm him.
“Once, [radio host] Manuel Cuschieri said something about me and a very high-ranking police officer told me in confidence that I should file a report, which means that they would have charged him had I filed a report.”
“However, I decided not to because I didn’t think his comment was a crime and I only report people when I’m sure a crime has been committed.”
Do you agree with Robert Aquilina’s reasoning?
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