Former Nationalist MP and lawyer Jason Azzopardi has been fined €1,000 after a court found him guilty of illegally filming Prime Minister Robert Abela and Justice Minister Jonathan Attard inside Valletta's law courts.
The ruling was handed down by Magistrate Monica Vella on Friday.
The case revolves around a video clip shared by NET News, showing Abela and Attard conversing in the court corridors on 2 December.
Filming inside court premises is strictly prohibited unless authorised by the courts' director-general or the chief justice.
The court services agency, upon seeking legal advice from the chief justice, lodged a criminal complaint about the video.
Azzopardi was subsequently charged with unauthorised filming and ordered to appear in court on 9 December.
During the first hearing, CCTV footage presented in court showed Azzopardi walking past the prime minister's team after exiting Hall 20.
In February, prosecution lawyer Alfred Abela argued that Azzopardi had clearly filmed the footage in question, as NET TV's video and CCTV recordings aligned perfectly.
After the verdict, Azzopardi took to Facebook to declare his intention to appeal, describing the ruling as an abuse of state institutions to silence critics.
"The use and abuse of state institutions by Robert Abela against his critics, including myself, will not stop me one bit from doing my work," he wrote.
On the day of the incident, Prime Minister Robert Abela was in court as three judges ruled on an appeal filed by the Nationalist Party concerning the fraudulent concession deal privatising three state hospitals.
In a statement, the Nationalist Party, tongue in cheek, noted "the efficient, organised, and zealous manner in which our country's authorities and institutions took action against lawyer Jason Azzopardi, who earlier today was found guilty of taking a photograph of Robert Abela and Jonathan Attard while they were in a public place".
It is highly gratifying that, at last, the authorities in our country have succeeded in carrying out a prosecution that led to a guilty verdict without shortcomings, without dragging their feet, and without acting in complicity with those accused, the PN said.
The PN urged all of our country's authorities and institutions to demonstrate and maintain the same level of commitment and momentum in the prosecution of clear cases of corruption, abuse of power, theft, fraud, and money laundering - particularly those involving corrupt Labour politicians and their accomplices, the statement said.
In a statement, the Labour Party said that Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech, instead of disassociating himself from Azzopardi, frequently invites him on the Nationalist media, which has also screened the videos which "Azzopardi illegally filmed in Court".
Karol Aquilina, Jason Azzopardi and Robert Aquilina are one clique and it is a well-known secret that they dictate the Nationalist Party's strategy and what Opposition Leader Bernard Grech has to say.
"The question arises on its own: What does Jason Azzopardi know about Bernard Grech so that he will never disassociate himself from him? What is Bernard Grech afraid of? Why is he so terrified of Jason Azzopardi?", the PL asked.
In a counter reply, the PN said Robert Abela and his clique judge others by their own standards because they believe everyone is like them.
The PN noted how the PL statement continues to confirm that Robert Abela and his clique only know how to measure others by their own yardstick. Because they all have something to hide, they assume everyone else does too.
While Robert Abela and his clique are busy threatening each other with what they know about one another, our country is suffering the consequences of the poor decisions taken by Abela and his Ministers in recent years - decisions that have led to Maltese and Gozitan families facing an out-of-control cost of living, unchecked population growth, air pollution and emissions, and traffic gridlock.