The Magistrates Court, presided over by Magistrate Michael Mallia, found the former Maltastar editor, Kurt Farrugia, not guilty of having defamed Architect Carmel Mifsud Borg over a telephone donation to the Nationalist Party.

On 11 December 2006, Maltastar ran an article entitled PN donation from government paid telephone line.

Mr Mifsud Borg is a Director General in the Ministry for Resources and Infrastructure and previously was a director with the Works Division. As such, he enjoyed a free phone line but any overseas calls he made he had to pay himself.

In March 2003, a Lm5 contribution to the Nationalist Party was made from that phone line. Later internal checks found that the director later paid the donation from his own funds, just as was done with any overseas call.

But the Magistrates Court found that no proof had been submitted to prove the connection between the article and Mr Farrugia, nor any connection between Mr Farrugia and maltastar.com.

For this reason, the court freed Mr Farrugia from the charges brought against him.