Siggiewi mayor Robert Musumeci, the architect involved in the controversial Bahrija project on a plot of land owned by PN president Victor Scerri, has filed a libel case against Astrid Vella of Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar.

In the writ, he claimed comments made by Ms Vella, which were published on www.timesofmalta.com on 18 June, were defamatory and libellous, and were intended to tarnish his reputation. The writ states that among other things, Ms Vella wrote: “Nice one Perit Musumeci, excellent piece of self-promotion! You are basically advertising, as you do every Sunday in Malta Today, that you are capable of obtaining even the most difficult permits, i.e. the ones that violate Mepa regulations, just as this one contravenes no less than 18 regulations! You are encouraging political clients to come to you with their abusive cases in the most blatant of manners. “What a wonderful things for a member of our country’s ruling political party to be openly promoting abuse. The tolerance of such behaviour by both political parties amounts to tacit acceptance. This is a totally unacceptable situation – how can our leaders be preaching ethics and obedience to the law when they are endorsing abuse in this way?”