The 19 libel cases filed by Silvio Debono against Daphne Caruana Galizia are expected to continue in February and after 16 hearings, the applicant has not once turned up in court.

This was pointed out by way of reply by the Caruana Galizia family to a request by Mr Debono to put forward further evidence once the applicant’s evidence stage had been declared closed in July, when neither he nor his lawyer had turned up “with no justification”.

All 19 cases had been instituted back in March 2017, with representatives of Db Group saying that they had no other option following a series of articles by the late journalist in which she alleged that the group had been handed public land to develop into real estate at well below market value.

Two-and-a-half years later, with the magistrate originally presiding over the cases being elevated to judge, the libel suits were assigned to another court, presided over by magistrate Victor George Axiaq who, in a sitting on July 10, 2019, decreed that the applicant’s evidence stage was closed. 

Following that declaration, the applicant’s lawyer, Albert Libreri, had filed an application requesting authorisation to produce his final witness, namely the Group’s CEO, claiming that his failure to do so earlier was through “no capricious” act on his part.

At the time of the July hearing he had been caught up before the Family Court, Dr Libreri explained, adding that he had not been aware of the court’s pronouncement bringing the curtain down on the applicant’s evidence stage.

However, in a reply objecting to that argument, the respondents’ lawyer, Joseph Zammit Maempel, countered that Mr Debono had “never bothered to attend at least one hearing”.

As for his lawyer’s argument that he had not been aware that the applicant’s evidence had been declared closed, the respondents pointed out that every lawyer, as well as the public in general, had online access to the minutes of civil proceedings. 

It was evident that Mr Debono “is not at all interested in the numerous suits he had filed,” Dr Zammit Maempel continued. 

“The writer of the story was murdered because of what she wrote and because of her investigative work and the respondents [her family] today, although disadvantaged, were going to persevere in defending and proving the subject-matter of the assassinated journalist’s writing.” 

In a hearing earlier in the week, the Court turned down the applicant’s request, adjourning the cases to February. 

Meanwhile, the Caruana Galizia family has filed affidavits in all 19 suits.

In a post on her Running Commentary, dated March 11, 2017, the late journalist had written: “Yesterday, Silvio Debono and his outfit filed 19 libel suits against me, all about the same subject, taking advantage of the fact that the law allows them to sue for each comment, article or blog-post even if the subject matter and the author are the same.

“They do it to silence criticism through fear and intimidation. This is consonant with the fact that we in Malta are now living in a culture of fear,” the journalist had said in that blog post, seven months before her assassination.