Kurt Farrugia, the former editor of One News and who is now the government's chief communications officer, was fined €2,500 today after losing a libel case filed by Brigitte Vassallo, a manager at an old people’s home in Mellieha.

Magistrate Francesco Depasquale gave Farrugia a dressing down over the news report, saying that the report was based on “misleading information given during a hot political climate,” namely on the day of the divorce referendum on 28 May 2011.

The Court said that Farrugia wanted to cause “clear damage” to Vassallo, by not only saying that she was trying to influence elderly patients' votes in the divorce referendum, but also pointing out that she the wife of a PN candidate, and that she is related to the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Edgar Galea Curmi, a favourite target of the Labour Party.

The Court said that while it is the duty of a journalist to inform the public about goings-on during the day of the Referendum, the journalist had a duty not to deliver misleading information aimed at damaging a person’s reputation.