Daphne Caruana Galizia, Peter Caruana Galizia and Andrew Borg Cardona were awarded €12,000 in damages today in a total of 6 libel suits they filed against the Labour party media and exponents of the Labour party for alleging the law firm of Peter Caruana Galizia and Andrew Borg Cardona were awarded government contracts due to Daphne Caruana Galizia’s criticism of the government.
Magistrate Franco Depasquale in 6 decisions issued today found the allegations were baseless and defamatory.
The case was continued by Daphne Caruana Galizia’s husband and sons after her killing .
On the defendants side Toni Abela who was originally sued as editor of Kullħadd had passed on his defense to his successor as editor when he was made a judge.
From the Times of Malta report earlier today: “Magistrate Francesco Depasquale in his judgment said that although the story tried to give the impression that Dr Caruana Galizia and Dr Borg Cardona personally benefited from the contracts, no such evidence had been produced in court.
On the other hand, the two lawyers had shown that over a period of six years, their company BCGL Services was only paid just over €5,000 for a nominee shareholding.
‘It is therefore clear that everything claimed by the writer was absolutely untrue where it involved the respondents personally. The allegations cannot be seen as being fair comment, as claimed by the defendants,’ the court said.”