Cabinet has discussed the case in which three students and a lecturer are facing criminal charges of hacking the largest student application in Malta, FreeHour, and will be recommending a presidential pardon for the accused.

Three students; Michael Debono, Giorgio Grigolo and Luke Bjorn Scerri were charged last week with gaining unauthorised access to the FreeHour app.

Their lecturer Mark Joseph Vella was charged as an accomplice for having proofread an email sent to FreeHour by the students. All four have pled not guilty.

A government statement said Tuesday that the Cabinet took note of the public position expressed by the alleged victim of this offense (FreeHour), as well as the fact that at the time the alleged offense was committed, the country lacked policies and laws regarding the identification of vulnerabilities and security weaknesses within the systems and networks of organisations.

The statement said that for these reasons, the Cabinet decided to recommend to the President that a pardon be granted to the students and the lecturer charged in the case, thus bringing the case to a close.

The statement continued that the lecturer and the students were informed of this development during a meeting with the Minister for Justice Jonathan Attard.