The incident during which property developer Charles Polidano, Ic-Caqnu, ran right across Balluta Bay after a woman columnist who had just referred to him as a “baruni”, has been widely condemned and has caused far more reactions and echoes, as one would expect.

The incident happened on Tuesday evening.

Claire Bonello, a very good-looking columnist with MaltaToday, was at one of the Le Meridien St Julian’s Hotel restaurants, and happened to pass by a table at which Ic-Caqnu was eating in the company of Beppe Fenech Adami, the son of the President, and a lawyer colleague of Dr Bonello’s lawyer husband.

Jokingly, or half-jokingly, Dr Bonello said to Dr Fenech Adami: “So now you are dining with baruni!”

Dr Fenech Adami did not react but Polidano’s partner, Isabel Vella, followed Dr Bonello out of the hotel and across the crowded Balluta Bay, full of people watching the England vs Sweden game, shouting abuse at her, asking her who was paying her to write articles about Ic-Caqnu, claiming Dr Bonello must have been jealous of Ic-Caqnu’s success and telling her not to go back to the hotel if she did not like its owner.

In the midst of all this shouting, Ic-Caqnu caught up with them, despite being held back by Dr Fenech Adami, and slapped Dr Bonello right across her face.

Ic-Caqnu denied to The Times that he slapped Dr Bonello and said he only pushed her after she labelled him a “drug baron”, but he later admitted to Dr Bonello’s husband that he was the one who had slapped her and said that she would not write about him again. Mr Polidano also told The Times that he has always earned his money “in an honest way” and that he felt aggrieved when “she called me a ‘drug baron’ three times.”

Sources told this paper that there seems to have been some sort of exchange of mutual apologies from both sides, but Dr Bonello later reported the matter to the police.

The incident has had repercussions elsewhere too. The committee of the newly-set up Journalists Association, of which Dr Bonello was a member, was criticised yesterday for the “wishy-washy” way in which committee chairman Karl Schembri commented on the incident. Mr Schembri told The Times that “while Dr Bonello’s comment was unwarranted, Mr Polidano’s reaction was unacceptable”. Writing in yesterday’s Times, AD secretary-general Stephen Cachia called for a stronger show of solidarity with Dr Bonello. Sources have told this paper that Dr Bonello has now resigned from the Journalists Association committee.