Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/905944
maltatoday WEDNESDAY 22 NOVEMBER 2017 News 7 MATTHEW AGIUS A man who sparked contro- versy by saying a PN MEP should be "burned alive" has been arraigned in court. Emmanuel Navarro, 66, of Naxxar appeared under ar- rest before magistrate Do- natella Frendo Dimech yes- terday, accused of inciting hatred on political grounds, misuse of electronic commu- nications equipment, insult- ing and threatening Metsola in writing under the criminal code and the press act. The pensioner found him- self in the national spotlight, being roundly condemned, after a number of PN MPs posted screenshots of his Fa- cebook comment, in which he called MEP Roberta Met- sola a "traitor" who should be burned alive. PN MEPs had previously come under fire for their criticism of the Labour gov- ernment in a rule of law de- bate held at the European Parliament after the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. In a brief statement urging the police to take action, the PN said it unreservedly con- demned the hate speech and expressed solidarity with its MEP. Inspector Elton Taliana charged Navarro with mak- ing the threats as his relatives waited in tears outside the courtroom. The man pleaded not guilty and requested bail. How- ever, the inspector objected, adding that, "as a policeman and in the current context", he could not let such threats slide. Navarro's defence counsel, Legal Procurator Peter Paul Zammit said it was a sad day for Malta that a 66-year-old man was being arraigned under arrest for a Facebook threat. The argument was dis- missed by the court which argued that it was a "hor- rendous day that one should pass such comments". Bail was denied and a pro- tection order in favour of the MEP was issued. The man's relatives were in tears outside the courtroom as the man was led away. Lawyer Jason Azzopardi and Karol Aquilina were parte civile. Man charged with Metsola death threats denied bail The man's relatives stood outside the courtroom in tears as he was led away by police Nationalist MEP Roberta Metsola YANNICK PACE THE police's cybercrime unit investigated 232 cases of "in- sults, threats and private vio- lence" in 2016, making it the second most frequently inves- tigated type of crime, accord- ing to data provided to Malta- Today by the unit. In total, 877 cases of online crimes were i nvest igated with "fraud, forgery and misappropri- ation", top- ping the list. "In 2003 we started with some 50 cases, an average of maybe one case a week, n o w a d a y s we're speak- ing about an average of two to three cases every single day," said Inspec- tor Timothy Z a m m i t , who heads the cyber crime unit. The data shows all forms of cyber crime increasing since 2003, with cases of fraud and forgery, insults and threats, and computer misuse increas- ing most rapidly in recent years. In 2016, they made up of 83% of all cases investigated by the cy- ber crime unit. Zammit explained that in many cases, cyber crime con- cerned the standard type of criminality observed in Mal- ta, except that in such cases, they were transposed onto an online platform. As such, he said the police received many complaints by people claim- ing to have been threatened or insulted online, with authori- ties obliged to investigate every complaint by members of the public. Last week, MaltaToday re- ported that Malta topped the list of per capita requests made by local enforcement authori- ties to service providers such as Facebook and Google. How- ever, Zammit said that such re- quests made up less than half of the total cases investigated by the police. Using internet fraud as an example, he said that perpetra- tors of such crimes sometimes registered an internet domain themselves, purely for them to be able to send out malicious emails requesting users' data. "For example someone posing as an employee of Maltapost might be using an email ad- dress such as joe.borg@mallta- post.com - the spelling mistake there is intentional - rather it is intended to make the receiver think it is coming from the "real" M a lt ap o s t ," said Zam- mit, adding that previ- ously fraud- sters might have used free email ac- counts. A c c o r d - ing to Zam- mit, Malta's small size meant the police had to process more cases in which one person would have insulted a second in- dividual, but on the other hand, he said that it allowed the police to better deal with issues such as cyber-bullying. "We don't have thousands of cases so we can give the indi- vidual attention required in these cases," said Zammit, in- sisting that, above all, the unit did not want those willing to commit crimes online to think that Malta was some sort of "free for all". Police investigated 232 online threats of violence last year The top five most commontypes of cyber crimes investigated by local authorities since 2003 Most common type of cyber crimes in 2016