Four hunters and trappers yesterday filed a judicial letter in court against the heads of the Malta-EU Information Centre claiming they were misled when they were told that the Maltese government had struck an agreement with the European Union on spring hunting.

Emanuel Zarb, John D’Amato, Michael Galea and Rodney Micallef filed the judicial letter against Carmel Attard and Elaine Cordina, officials of the Malta-EU Information Centre and the centre itself, which is now called Forum Malta fl-Ewropa.

The hunters referred to Aggornat, an information leaflet issued by the Malta-EU Information Centre on 13 October 2002. In this publication, the centre said that the government and the EU had agreed that spring hunting was going to be allowed, that hunting at sea was being allowed from three kilometres from the coast, and that a study would be undertaken until the end of 2007 to establish the number of song birds which could be trapped.

The hunters complained that it was not true that there was such an agreement with the European Union on the mentioned points and therefore held the centre, Mr Attard and Ms Cordina responsible for misleading them as well as thousands of other people.

Dr Anglu Farrugia and Dr Joseph Mifsud signed the writ.