A man accused of threatening Arnold Cassola online was absolved of charges after the court ruled the prosecution had failed to properly verify that the Facebook account where the threats originated belonged to the accused.

The MEP candidate had told the court, presided over by Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech, that he felt the accused, Jesmond Muscat, had “celebrated his death” through Facebook comments.

Muscat was criminally charged with threatening and insulting Cassola.

The comments included a video of the dancing pall bearers meme, which had Cassola’s face and words “Rip Cassola” on top of the original video. In the caption, Muscat wrote “Ejja ha nicelebraw (sic)” (come on let’s celebrate).

On one of Cassola’s own posts, Muscat commented “be careful someone doesn’t punch you in the face, don’t forget you are just an ordinary person, not some minister, there isn’t a harsher sentence, so you better leave people alone”. He attached an image of an open toilet to this comment.

As submissions drew to a close, defence lawyer Albert Zerafa said that while the prosecution had linked the Facebook account and an e-mail address to Muscat, it had not sought to do so through Facebook itself.

The defence argued that the prosecution should have made a rogatorja – an official request to Facebook for the platform to verify that the account in question did indeed belong to Muscat.

Zerafa added that the lack of such verification could set a dangerous precedent, given the ease with which one could set up a Facebook profile under somebody else’s name.

In light of this lack of proper verification, Magistrate Frendo Dimech decided to absolve Muscat of all charges.

Police inspector Roderick Attard prosecuted.

Lawyer Albert Zerafa appeared for the accused.