The whys and wherefores behind the shameless spin applied this week by two particular sections of the media to the story of Martin Galea – the former Armed Forces of Malta captain who went to hell and back when he was kidnapped, imprisoned, beaten and threatened with death by a Libyan militia – is utterly deplorable.

This is, after all, a country that, virtually without fail, unwaveringly stands behind one of its own under such circumstances. This is a country that normally empathises when one of their fellow countrymen has undergone such duress and hardship. In this particular case, Galea has thankfully come out of the ordeal alive, safe and sound. But things could have very easily taken quite another turn had any of the many twists and turns that his chilling experience had taken during his 11 days in captivity in war-torn Libya gone any different than they had.

But not only that, upon his return he has had to defend himself from the assaults launched by two sections of the local media, news outlets that appear hell bent on discrediting him at all costs – even at the cost of their respectability and of seriously misleading their respective readerships.

While it is only natural – and in fact the duty of any individual working in the news – to look at any story with a certain amount of healthy scepticism, what these two newspapers have done this week surpasses that duty.

First, one newspaper on Wednesday attempted to feed its readership the line that Galea had not been abducted at all and that he had simply been held for his own safekeeping by a friendly militia because he was Maltese. That was the very day that Galea sat down with members of this newsroom to go over his entire ordeal in excruciating detail.

That same afternoon, the government echoed that version of events during a media briefing by insisting that the government had never said he was abducted (an outright lie) and that his medical report showed he had no signs of violence on his person. Our journalist covering that briefing, who had no idea of the result of Galea’s interview with this paper, duly reported what was said.

The next day, all hell must have broken loose in some circles. Our sister daily newspaper reported in great detail all that Galea had been through with his own meticulous descriptions: a clear case of abduction, his detention, his brutal physical and psychological treatment at the hands of his captors.

That interview was greeted the next day, Friday, with a vitriolic article in yet another section of the media that attempted to downplay his ordeal, cast doubts on the man’s own version of events and even went so far as to cite ‘sources’ at Mater Dei who relayed details of his medical report to the newspaper. Incidentally, the leaking of confidential medical details is criminal and for a newspaper to partake in that activity is illegal as well; there are data protection and patient rights issues here that should be investigated.

Now, the motives behind these newspapers’ accounts are best known to their respective editors, but there are several theories doing the rounds.

Some would say that these two rival publications (which were, incidentally, first MaltaToday on Wednesday and second l-orizzont on Friday) were upset that Galea exclusively entrusted this media company to tell his gruesome tale to the country. This does not hold water, we in the media know all too well that you win some and you lose some and, by and large we all practice good sportsmanship in our endless competition for news.

Others, meanwhile, put it down to journalistic inquisitiveness. That does not hold water either: the sources quoted and the information given is simply too shaky and hazardous for any serious newspaper to report as the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Others still argue that those stories were printed at the government’s behest, in an attempt to downplay the entire situation – after the Prime Minster, the Home Affairs Minister and the Foreign Affairs Minister all turned up on the landing strip with no small amount of fanfare to greet the returned former soldier.

But why on earth would the government feel it had to fictitiously, and perhaps desperately, attempt to change the facts to make it seem as though Galea had not been subjected to the treatment and ordeal that he had actually been subjected to? Why would it want to minimise the extent of his horrific ordeal when it knew better, much better? Galea was, after all debriefed by senior members of the Malta Security Service when he first landed safely in Malta and it couldn’t have taken them more than 15 minutes to determine what this brave soul had endured.

Some have speculated that the government took umbrage over the fact that Galea, upon landing, publically thanked Marisa Farrugia, Malta’s consul to Libya who was quickly reinstated to handle the Galea situation, instead of the government at large. Dr Farrugia had been suspended by the government over allegations of visa issuance improprieties in Libya. But for a government to embark on a smear campaign against a person that the country as a whole had warmly welcomed home just because of that doesn’t make any sense.

Another theory is that the government chose to save face in light of the fact that it had not ordered an evacuation of Maltese citizens from Libya in the week in which Galea had been abducted. The government had, in fact played down events unfolding very quickly in Libya until it realised that a Maltese citizen had been abducted.

This is the most serious accusation of all. For a government to smear a person who had been through so much simply for the sake of public relations would be simply abominable behaviour.

This cannot have been the case, but if one day it transpires that the government had some kind of hidden hand in all this, there will be some serious questions to be answered, more serious than those begging to be answered today.

Giving the government the benefit if the doubt, we will put this week’s deplorable reporting down to a quest for sensationalism after the rug was pulled from under their feet by this newspaper, shoddy reporting and a failure to fact check their sources and the extremely dubious information that came their way and somehow fell into their laps.