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5 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 26 FEBRUARY 2025 NEWS Joseph Muscat drops libel case against lawyer who said he 'blew up' Daphne Caruana Galizia JOSEPH Muscat has dropped his libel case against lawyer Christian Grima af- ter the lawyer clarified that the social media comment made back in 2020 was not made to accuse Muscat of being the person behind the killing of journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia. Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinat- ed in a car bomb attack in October 2017. The case was dropped on Monday by Muscat after Grima told the court that his comment was not meant to be un- derstood that Muscat placed the bomb himself. The libel suit was opened when the law- yer made comments in reaction to a vid- eo of Michelle Muscat, the former PM's wife, where she spoke about "what hap- pened" to Caruana Galizia. In May 2020, the lawyer wrote in re- sponse to the video: "What happened to her? Your husband blew her up. That's what happened". Following this, Muscat filed a defama- tion suit against Grima, who was also a former schoolmate of his, stating that he implied that he murdered her, clearly giving rise to defamation. However, last Monday, Grima ex- plained how his comment was not meant to be taken in a literal sense. In 2022, Grima's laywers had already made the same clarification in the hear- ing of the same case declaring that "with his writing and remark, he did not want to imply that Muscat personally placed a bomb on the car door of Daphne Carua- na Galizia or pressed a button that deto- nated the same bomb that killed her". He only meant that back in 2017, Mus- cat's government had fostered an envi- ronment of unlawfulness and violence that led to the murder of the journalist, a statement which was reflected in the public inquiry's findings of the murder. Grima was represented by lawyer Karl Grech. Muscat was represented by law- yer Pawlu Lia. Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat (File photo) A 70-year-old man was fined €1,500 by a criminal court after being found guilty of bird trap- ping. On 15 November 2023, Pub- lius Vella was accused of hunt- ing or trapping birds in the limits of Għajnsielem, keeping birds illegally, using birds as decoys without a registered identification rings, and for trapping on an unregistered and unapproved site. The birds were not fitted with closed rings of the cor- rect size for their species or the single-use rings issued by the Wild Birds Regulation Unit. The prosecution explained that during a police patrol against illegal hunting and trap- ping in Triq id-Daħla tal-Għa- ma, the police distinctly heard the sounds of songbirds. Upon searching the area, they found a trap with nets and birds. The police said no one was present on site, but a mobile phone was found inside a near- by hunter's den. A vehicle was also discovered nearby. Both the mobile phone and the vehi- cle were linked to the accused. The police seized 33 birds in total and a casette with song- bird sounds. Vella claimed he had lost his mobile in the area and that his vehicle was parked there be- cause he owned land nearby. He insisted he was not a trap- per and did not hold a trapping licence. However, Magistrate Jean Paul Grech, did not believe this recount of events. The court said that a lost mobile phone would not be neatly placed on a wooden pallet inside the den. The court said that if the mo- bile phone was truly lost, the probability was such that the phone would have been found on the floor on some part of the field or in the vehicle nearby. The accused also claimed that someone had probably found the phone and placed it in the den. The accused said he had no idea on who could have done so and he did not include this claim in his original state- ment to the police. The court claimed that if someone had indeed stumbled upon the lost mobile phone, they would have left it in the den because they knew it be- longed to the accused. It made no sense that someone would have found the mobile and placed it in a den which the ac- cused had no connection to. The court asked the accused: "If you have no connection to the nets and they belong to someone else, why would they place the mobile phone in the den?". The accused had no an- swer to the question. The court added that it could not believe Vella when he claimed he did not know who owned the den, given that he owned land right nearby and was present in the area daily. The court also stated that the den was equipped with lights, indicating that the accused fre- quented the area even during the night-time. The police also noted that no other vehicles were observed parked nearby. The court said that from the footage, it is clear that the area is very secluded and for an individual to arrive there, a vehicle is required. Therefore, since the only ve- hicle present at the site be- longed to the accused, it was clear that although the accused was not found on the area dur- ing the inspection, there is no doubt that the accused was present where the trap and the birds were found. The court concluded that all the evidence indicated that Vella had quickly hid himself when he realised the police had arrived in the area and in a panic, forgot his mobile phone behind in the den. Therefore, Vella was found guilty of all charges and fined. He was also banned from ob- taining a hunting or trapping licence for two years. Man fined €1,500 after police seize 33 trapped birds