Truth. Always.

Daphne Caruana Galizia wrote that Adrian Delia’s law partnership with Georg Sapiano earns money from billing porn.

Her words were “Delia and Sapiano run the CCBill porn-billing operation in Malta, for which they bill Ron Cadwell heavily. This website was unable to discover whether Cadwell/CCBill pays them outside Malta or whether they keep a percentage of the business transacted in Malta.”

Anyone who knows me knows Georg Sapiano is a long-time friend of mine. This does not impact what I’m writing here but it needs to be declared for readers to make an informed assessment of what I say.

Daphne Caruana Galizia’s reporting is factually incorrect. Georg Sapiano is a lawyer and could not run billing operations, whether for porn or for paint cans, to save his life.

CCBill is indeed a firm that provides payment services to websites, principally though not exclusively, porn sites. Take from that what you will. You are certainly entitled to be indifferent or to strongly disapprove. Whichever way you feel, CCBill operates in Malta from a three-storey building with some 60 employees: all with their clothes on.

CCBill are also indeed Georg Sapiano’s clients.

I knew that for some time not because I am Georg Sapiano’s friend. The CCBill story was out in the public domain when 9 years ago Georg Sapiano was an electoral candidate.

I called him this morning about the story by Daphne Caruana Galizia and he told me CCBill are not and have never been Adrian Delia’s clients. He also told me Adrian Delia never met CCBill’s owner Ron Cadwell.

He also told me he communicated these facts to Daphne Caruana Galizia.

I asked Georg Sapiano on the scale of the services he provides to CCBill and he told me that during 2017 he expects to bill them less than 600 euro a month in legal services. I have no way of verifying this information of course.

I wrote in an earlier piece that we should all feel comfortable with agreeing or disagreeing with the reporting of independent journalism without carrying issues of guilt or betrayal.

I also wrote several times that in my view truth and letting people know it trumps any political convenience or agenda.

I think this truth should be known.

I have not been a supporter of Adrian Delia’s bid for leadership but whichever way I may feel: truth always.