Toni Bezzina has lost his appeal from a court sentence that had cleared the Prime Minister of making false and defamatory statements against him.

In a ruling delivered today, Judge Anthony Ellul rejected the appeal filed by Bezzina in a case decided in July 2018.

The case goes back to comments made by Joseph Muscat during a public meeting in 2015 that Bezzina had forced government workers to sign a false declaration.

Muscat was referring to a case that happened in 2012, when Bezzina, who worked as an architect with the public works department was discovered to have used three workers under his wing to carry out maintenance work on the Żurrieq PN club. Bezzina was at the time, president of the PN sectional committee.

A court of magistrates had cleared the Prime Minister of making false and defamatory statements about the PN MP. Bezzina subsequently appealed the decision.

But Ellul rejected Bezzina’s appeal, confirming the decision of the court of first instance. In its ruling, the appeals court said that Bezzina failed to present proof that the comments he was complaining about were actually said.