A 66-year-old, Emmanuel Navarro, has been slammed in jail for having written threatening words against MEP Roberta Metsola after her speech in the European Parliament.

Mr Navarro said that Metsola deserved to be burned alive because, as he put it, she is a traitor to Malta.

Now we all understand that nerves in Malta are hyper-tense following the brutal murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia and words which threaten the burning of a person are unacceptable.

Those of us who follow the comments written on news portals know that Mr Navarro is a firebrand with some very hardline sentiments. And his words are unacceptable.

But by no means of imagination can one actually see him threatening bodily harm to Ms Metsola. The Daphne murder tells us that those who threaten rarely do what they threaten and those who do never say what they will do.

We cannot remember any other case where someone ended up in jail because of words that were uttered. On the contrary, the Daphne murder generated shock waves all around the world precisely because it was an attempt to curtail her freedom of speech.

And as Parliamentary Secretary Silvio Schembri said in Parliament on Wednesday, Ms Caruana Galizia herself wrote words that are at least equal to those uttered by Mr Navarro and she was not thrown in any jail.

It must be made clear that Mr Navarro has been kept in prison for the duration of the court case and not as a punishment for his action. Bail was refused him.

It may be a rather tricky legal point to make, but he should have been given a full dressing down by the court or made to apologise to Ms Metsola rather than being sent to jail until the court decides otherwise.

There is also the other issue that other members of the public wrote or said similar threatening words following the European Parliament session and have so far not been arraigned in court.

We agree that following the national crisis brought about by the Caruana Galizia murder it is imperative for all to tone down inflammatory words but in our opinion justice will not be served by sending septuagenarians to jail.

Mr Navarro must be brought out of prison as soon as possible. We make it also clear that this leader has not been inspired by any sort of pressure, not from Mr Navarro nor from anybody else.