The widow and children of murder victim Paul Degabierle (Is-Suldat) have appealed the decision of a magistrate’s court after it threw out a libel suit filed against the Sunday PN newspaper Il-Mument which described him as a "dangerous criminal”.

The family of the murdered victim, who said that they found the newspaper’s remarks to be offensive, are calling for the court to revoke judgment and instead to order the family to be compensated by the newspaper in question for damages.

Anna Maria, Nadesh and Ryan Degabriele had complained that the front page article of Il-Mument on 16 June 2013, published two weeks after he was shot in Marsa, had implicated him in high-profile murders over the past months.

Magistrate Francesco Depasquale had said the article’s description of Degabriele as a dangerous criminal was justified in the context of his "never-ending" criminal record, which started from when he was just 15-years-old.

Degabriele, 48, of Fgura, was gunned down at around 11am outside Sammy’s Bar in Belt il-Ħazna Road, Marsa, on 31 May 2013 by an unknown man who escaped in a stolen van driven by an accomplice.

Degabriele had just walked out of the bar and was sitting in his Toyota pick-up when he was shot three times in the head and twice in his upper body. The police said a semi-automatic 9mm pistol was used.

Prior to his murder, in October 2012, a bomb was found to have been planted under Debariele's Toyota. The device was safely detonated by AFM ordnance experts.

Two months later he was among those questioned about the murder of Joseph Cutajar, known as Il-Lion, who was found dead in his car in Mosta a few hours after Josef Grech, 41, from Balzan, Il-Yo Yo, had been fatally shot in the head in Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq.

Degabriele was released without being charged.

Lawyer Roberto Montalto filed the application on behalf of the Degabriele family.