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11 NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 21 JANUARY 2024 BLOGGER Mark Camilleri has been ordered by the Data Protec- tion Commissioner to delete from his blog a dump of WhatsApp chats between MP Rosianne Cutajar and Yorgen Fenech. In a decision communicated on Friday, the commissioner ruled that the publication of 370 pages of personal data went beyond the journalistic exemption allowed at law. "The controller [Camilleri] could have been faithful to his journal- istic freedoms and conducted a thorough assessment by carefully going through all the messages included on the 370 pages in or- der to identify those chats which were specifically in the substantial public interest to disclose," Data Protection Commissioner Ian De- guara said. Instead, Camilleri simply dumped everything online in two attachments with the blogpost en- titled 'Here are the full chat tran- scripts between Rosianne Cutajar and Yorgen Fenech'. The commissioner observed that Camilleri made no attempt to remove or redact information pertaining to third parties, who were not relevant to the points he had been making. The case concerns a complaint filed by Yorgen Fenech, who stands accused of masterminding the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, against Camilleri after the latter published the WhatsApp chats on his blog in March last year. The chats, extracted from Fenech's mobile phone, form part of the criminal proceedings against him. In two separate de- crees the court in 2020 and 2021 had ordered a complete ban on their publication in any medium. Subsequently, the criminal court ordered the police to investigate and charge Camilleri for breach- ing the court decree. Camilleri had published the WhatsApp messages on the eve of a libel case hearing in ongoing litigation proceedings against him filed by Cutajar. In a previous sit- ting, Cutajar had denied having a relationship with Fenech. The dump contained exchanges between Cutajar and Fenech from 2019 before the latter was charged in court with Caruana Galizia's murder. The exchanges concerned matters of public interest, such as Cutajar's statement that she would be taking up a consultancy job at ITS because 'everyone else is pigging out', but also messages of a private and sexual nature. The chats published by Camilleri also suggested that Cutajar and Fenech had an intimate relationship. Subsequent, to the chats being published, Cutajar was forced to resign from the Labour Party parliamentary group with Prime Minister Robert Abela now in- sisting she has paid the price and enough time has passed for her to be accepted back into the fold. In his complaint to the IDPC, Fenech said the publication had caused him and his family "im- measurable distress and anguish." "By no stretch of anyone's imag- ination can it be said that there is substantial public interest in the dissemination of private conver- sations with a third party (which topics of conversation have ab- solutely nothing to do with the criminal proceedings against the data subject). The post only serves to create sensationalism and plac- es the data subject in a perpetual negative light in the public eye," Fenech's lawyers argued in their submission. On his part, Camilleri had ar- gued that the contents of the WhatsApp chats he disclosed were of significant public interest and that it was on this basis that he had chosen to publish them. In his ruling, Data Protection Commissioner Ian Deguara said Camilleri failed to demonstrate that the processing of the person- al data pertaining to Fenech was "proportionate, necessary and justified for reasons of substantial public interest". He ruled that the publication of the chats was "unlawful" and ordered Camilleri to erase the two attachments containing the WhatsApp exchanges from the blog post. The decision is legally-binding and Camilleri was given three days to comply with the order. He was also reprimanded and warned that in the event of a further sim- ilar infringement, "appropriate enforcement action shall be taken accordingly". If Camilleri fails to comply with the ruling he is liable to pay an administrative fine, which the law says should be "effective, propor- tionate and dissuasive". The decision can be appealed. Additional reporting Matthew Agius LAWYER Franco Debono made an un- scripted appearance on a popular discus- sion radio to rebut earlier comments by a guest who had criticised the way that Debono was hinting at the possibility of him returning to politics. During a guest appearance on Andrew Azzopardi's Saturday morning discus- sion show, the PN's lawyer Edward Debono alleged that fellow lawyer and former PN MP, Franco Debono, was considering a return to the PN, but was attempting to impose the condition that he be involved in its leadership. Referring to a recent Facebook post by Franco Debono, in which he had said that nothing should be excluded with re- gards to his reintegration into the PN, or even as part of the running of the party, Edward Debono said that this was "not correct" of Franco Debono. Previous PN leaders always had done so out of a sense of duty, he argued. This led to a surprise unscheduled vis- it to the studio by Franco Debono, a few minutes later. "I tolerate opinions but I don't tolerate lies," he told the bemused host, who al- lowed him to speak nonetheless. "I was at home and I came here to confront him in person about his lies and ask him to explain where I had imposed a condition or even expressed a wish to become PN leader." "I am not going to tolerate people lying about me. I was at home. I have work to do," Debono said, before thanking Andrew Azzopardi for allowing him to come on the show. Franco Debono said that scientific sur- veys which he had paid for, as well as oth- er "non scientific surveys carried out by Lovin Malta", showed that "many people out there, including PN voters, want me to be in the PN leadership." He called upon the previous speaker to take back the "total lie" that he had just said on air. "I made no condition and neither did I express any wishes," insisted Debono. The outspoken lawyer said he had sup- port from the party grassroots. "People like Edward Debono are a small clique who have held the party back." Franco Debono said that he held no ill-will towards his fellow lawyer. "I still refer to him as a friend of mine…I reach out to everyone, even those who are in- correct and Edward Debono was very incorrect…" Franco Debono said, adding that he was categorically denying Edward Debono's statement about him. On Facebook yesterday, Nationalist MP Alex Borg had endorsed Franco Debono and encouraged him to continue to move towards the PN, saying he "has much to offer" in a post featuring a photo of him with the former MP, taken earlier this week after a meeting between the two. Blogger ordered to delete WhatsApp chats between Rosianne Cutajar and Yorgen Fenech Franco Debono makes surprise studio visit to confront radio show guest over comments KURT SANSONE ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt Franco Debono on Andrew Azzopardi's programme Mark Camilleri