The President of Malta, Marie Louise Coleiro Preca has confirmed with The Malta Independent that she has officially issued the Presidential Pardon for the Mayor of Zurrieq Ignatius Farrugia.

The latter was released from serving time in prison after what has been described as an error in the sentencing process, where he was accused of harassing journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Judge Giovanni Grixti gave the judgment in the Court of Appeal.

The judgment was given in open court this morning and the news was somehow leaked to the media. However, the judgment was only released on the justice services website late in the afternoon.

Legal sources who spoke to this newsroom have said that the whole pardon was issued in record time, still questioning how it was possible to go through the whole process in a matter of a few hours.

However, a statement issued by the Department of Information, confirmed that the Minister for Justice Owen Bonnici advised the President to issue the pardon, as dictated by the Maltese Constitution.

It was Mr Justice Grixti who filed a request for the Presidential pardon.  Contacted by The Malta Independent, Mr Farrugia's lawyer Franco Debono said: "He was found guilty of a charge from which he had already been acquitted by the lower court, that is the Magistrates' Court, and no appeal was filed. The error, he said, was in the fact that the appelant could not be found guilty, on his own appeal, of a charge that he had already been cleared of by the court in its first instance." He explained that the prison term could only have ever been put into effect, if the appeal was filed by the Attorney General's Office. The practice is known as double jeopardy, as implemented in the US.