Kulhadd editor Felix Agius has been ordered to pay Fr Joe Borg Lm500 in damages after an appeals court declared an article to be libellous.

Fr Borg had filed a libel suit regarding an article published on the 8 November 1998 issue of the Kulhadd. In the article, the priest was quoted to have told an English newspaper that Malta was like Beirut while under the Labour government.

In January 2003, the first hall of the Civil Court had ruled against Fr Borg. In yesterday’s judgment, however, the appeal’s court overturned this ruling.

The court said that the evidence provided shows that Fr Borg never made the claims quoted in the article and these were all a figment of the writer’s imagination.

Presiding judges Chief Justice Vincent De Gaetano, Mr Justice Anton Depasquale and Mr Justice Albert Magri therefore noted that the article cannot amount to fair comment.

In view of this, they ruled in favour of Fr Borg and ordered Mr Agius to pay Lm500 in compensation.