Multiple civil libel suits have been filed against journalist Matthew Caruana Galizia by a Maltese corporate services provider and an accountant over a series of tweets in which Caruana Galizia linked them to tax fraud and murder.
Local tax lawyer Christian Ellul and accountant Karl Schranz, together with their company E&S Consultancy Limited, filed three separate libel suits against the journalist over the tweets which were posted in February and March 2018.
Another libel suit has also been filed against The Shift News, which had reported on the tweets in an article titled ‘The man charged with Jan Kuciak’s murder, his links to Malta and what a safe can reveal’.
Matthew Caruana Galizia, speaking with this newspaper, said he had not even been notified of the case nor had he been served summons to appear, possibly because he is not in the country.
When the case was called for its first sitting this morning, the court was informed by the plaintiff’s counsel Joe Giglio that Caroline Muscat’s lawyer, Andrew Borg Cardona, was unable to attend the sitting but had expressed the intention to contest the case.
The story was also picked up by foreign news outlets, which carried out investigations of their own. Last Saturday, 27 March 2019, Ellul and Schranz had published a statement rebutting the allegations.
The defendants were given a 15-day period by Magistrate Rachel Montebello in which they are to present their replies to the original application.