President of NGO Repubblika Robert Aquilina has filed a court application asking Magistrate Nadine Lia to recuse herself from another court case.

This court case was instituted after Aquilina filed a police report over a comment made about him on Facebook. This comment was written by Joseph Schembri on a post made by Anton Rea Cutajar. Schembri had criticised Aquilina for holding a protest against the invasion of Russia into Ukraine, saying that he deserved to be 'hanged'. Aquilina reported that it "incited violence and hatred" towards him. The defence attorney, Joe Sammut said that these words are common in the south of Malta and that the accused did not really want to be violent or encourage others to do so.

Following Repubblika's success in having Lia forcibly removed from the Pilatus Bank case, Aquilina filed a court application for this separate case to be reassigned.

In a previous hearing of the case which took place on 10 October, Aquilina asked Lia to recuse herself, however, despite that the police had agreed with that request, Lia refused to recuse herself. Lia had asked the inspector to quote the article of the law which would justify her recusal; however, he was not in a position to quote.

Now, Aquilina has filed a formal application requesting that she recuse herself from the case.

Aquilina said that the First Hall of Civil Court had already noted that Lia had expressed a lot of hostility towards Repubblika and Aquilina.

He said that he cannot resort to protection from the courts if the Magistrate has shown hostility towards Aquilina already, and whose father-in-law, Pawlu Lia, had already "aggressively" approached Aquilina because he asked for Nadine Lia to recuse herself.

"Therefore, through today's application, I have requested that Magistrate Lia does not continue to hear this case so that Justice can take place," he said.

Aquilina said that he has no means of protecting his family and himself from these threats, the only thing he can do is resort to the courts, which are meant to be impartial.

He revealed that the threats against him are so serious that even the foreign organisation, Scottish PEN contacted Maltese authorities showing concern for Aquilina's safety. He also said that Frontline Defenders - an Irish human rights organisation, have offered their help to keep him and his family safe.

The court application was signed by lawyer Jason Azzopardi.