Court decision confirms Daphne Caruana Galizia’s ‘integrity and courage’

Daphne Caruana Galizia’s heirs and lawyer Andrew Borg Cardona were awarded €12,000 in damages in a total of six libel suits they filed against the Labour Party media and exponents for alleging the law firm of Peter Caruana Galizia and Andrew Borg Cardona were awarded government contracts due to Daphne Caruana Galizia’s criticism of the Labour government.

Contacted by the Shift News, Borg Cardona said that it was “gratifying that the misleading spins put out by Labour at the time of the 2013 election had been recognised by the Court as nothing but a lie.”

He said it was particularly pleasing that – entirely coincidentally – the judgements were delivered on the very day after the news about the very serious allegations concerning the Pilatus Bank chairman had come to light.

“The truth has a way of coming out, sometimes” Borg Cardona said, continuing that it was poignant that Daphne Caruana Galizia’s legacy as a woman of integrity and courage had been highlighted “on the very morning that we were reconstructing her memorial after it had been vandalised, yet again.”

Peter Caruana Galizia and Borg Cardona had filed court proceedings after an article published in Labour Party weekly newspaper KullĦadd in August 2014 alleged that the two were shareholders in a company which received €2.5m in government contracts by the Nationalist government.

In a related case, Caruana Galizia had instituted proceedings against junior minister Aaron Farrugia for having claimed on Twitter and Facebook that the two lawyers had benefited from contracts of €2.5 million under the PN government.

Farrugia had said that the two lawyers were not only partners but shared “the hate and coordinated attacks 24/7 against all that is Labour, a common editorial line coordinated in Pieta.”

He had also claimed that his comments were only a concise summary of what had been reported on the Labour Party’s newspaper.