Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1004621
Economy minister Chris Cardona has used the publication of an SMS to Daphne Caruana Galizia to insist her source was never in Germany MATTHEW VELLA A text message from someone claiming to be the second witness to have seen minister Chris Cardona inside a broth- el in Germany, was intended at mis- leading the late journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. MaltaToday spoke to two differ- ent political sources, who spoke to this newspaper on condition of anonymity and declared they were told of the ruse from people close to the economy min- ister. The sources con- firmed suspicions first raised during a defamation case when Labour Party organ One News and the lawyers of Chris Cardona and his aide Joseph Gerada – who sued Caruana Galizia for libel over the allegation that they were spotted inside Velbert's FKK Acapulco brothel – presented a screenshot of an SMS sent to Caruana Galizia. "A person who claimed to be a sec- ond witness to the Acapulco sighting, called Caruana Galizia saying that Car- dona and Gerada had been seen return- ing to the establishment the day after she posted her allegation. The person then only kept in contact briefly with Caruana Galizia via SMS," the sources told this newspaper. The sources, who learnt of this detail in conversations with people close to Cardona, said the person who claimed to be the second witness had intention- ally carried out the phone-call. "The person obliged, as it were, to mislead Caruana Galizia, possibly for sport or to skew her reporting intentionally, so that she could be sued over some incorrect assertion," the sources said. Newspaper post maltatoday today today SUNDAY • 15 JULY 2018 • ISSUE 975 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY WORLD CUP 2018 SCORES AND STATS WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT/WORLDCUP2018 €1.95 today today SUNDAY • 15 JULY 2018 • ISSUE 975 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY today • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY today Now England's going home... fourth England 0 Belgium 2 Model shown for demonstration purposes only. * Price is inclusive of Scrappage Scheme. T&Cs apply. Mosta Road, Lija LJA 9011, Malta. Tel: 23311126 / 23311131 Mgarr Road, Xewkija XWK 9012, Gozo. Tel: 21550962 Email: sales@autosales.com.mt Kind's www.autosales.com.mt Renault CAPTUR Capture life. Everything you loved about Captur just got be er! Check out our Captur faceli starting from €16,300* more of v STOPPED FROM SAVING LIVES Sea-Watch activist Carola Rackete interviewed PGS 16-17 PAGE 3 AG told to close case in overlong Dalligate bribery prosecution Journalist misled by 'Acapulco' SMS ruse from Malta SMS from Malta to Daphne Caruana Galizia claiming second Cardona sighting at German brothel said to have been intentional to mislead journalist 5 THE newly-promoted judge Grazio Mercieca could face a raft of requests for recusals from lawyers, after the Chief Justice assigned him cases related to review decisions made by the govern- ment. Chief Justice Joseph Azzopardi as- signed Mercieca – appointed magis- trate in 2016 and promoted to judge earlier this year – with the job of han- dling cases concerning decisions made by the government and public authori- ties, where plaintiffs protest such administrative decisions. Check out the match stats on www. maltatoday. com.mt 28 STOPPED FROM SAVING LIVES Carola Rackete interviewed Recusal alert for judge who served Labour minister MATTHEW VELLA A high court ruling has declared that the man accused of trading in influence and complicity in the request of a €60 million bribe from a Swedish tobacco company, had his human rights breached when the Attorney General refused to declare his evidence closed. The ruling in favour of restauranteur Silvio Zammit (pictured) was handed down by the Court of Constitutional Ap- peal, which confirmed a decision by the civil court in its constitutional jurisdic- tion. Zammit was accused in 2012 of having requested the bribe from snus manufac- turer, Swedish Match and the European Smokeless Tobacco Council, a lobby group, in a bid to convince then European Commissioner for health John Dalli, to lift an EU ban on the smokeless tobacco, which is legal in Sweden but banned from being sold in other European countries. The scandal had forced Dalli to resign after the European Anti-Fraud Agency, OLAF, claimed the Maltese politician was aware that his name was being used by Zammit to solicit the bribe. 4 WIN! TWO RETURN TICKETS WITH AIR MALTA Our travel competition inside MALTATODAY 2