I couldn’t believe it when I read that Architect Robert Musumeci had filed a libel case against Astrid Vella of Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar. I have read, re-read and re-read again the words attributed to Astrid Vella and I cannot see anything that any court could consider as either defamatory or libellous, unless of course the truth could be so interpreted.

As I understand it, Mr Musumeci has a reputation of being able to obtain permits for applications that other architects can’t. Isn’t this what Ms Vella said? The application in question does indeed violate no less than 18 Mepa regulations, so he can’t have a problem with that, can he?

Continuing to push for a positive decision on an application that has been turned down four times by Mepa is indeed promoting abuse of the system and needs to be brought to the attention of the public. It is bad enough when this happens at any time, but when the person concerned is a member of the PN, which after all is supposed to be reforming Mepa, it is disgusting and unforgivable.

The problem here is that people like Robert Musumeci, who doesn’t give a damn about rules and regulations, have been getting away with this sort of thing for far too long. He’s not suing Ms Vella because he believes what she said is wrong – after all there is an old saying that there is no such thing as bad publicity – he is suing Ms Vella in the hope of gagging her so that he can continue to get away with the sort of environmental rape he is famous for.

I for one hope he doesn’t succeed in this venture and that the country stands firm behind Ms Vella. This is not a case of one architect taking on one member of an NGO, this is a case of an abusive system taking on the entire population of Malta for the privilege of continuing to abuse the system at the expense of the ordinary Maltese citizen.

James A. Tyrrell

COUNTY ANTRIM

N. IRELAND