Manuel Delia wins 'mafia' libel against academic Simon Mercieca

Civil society activist Manuel Delia has been awarded €1,000 in libel damages in a case he filed against university academic Simon Mercieca.

The case was filed after Mercieca wrote two blogs detailing claims Delia had deliberately scuppered a deal to transfer the Mediterranean Film Studios in Kalkara to Keith Schembri in 2007.

Mercieca claimed Delia, then chief of staff to former minister Austin Gatt, had acted unethically and in a mafia-like manner by sabotaging the film studio negotiations out of “greed.” He further described Delia as a hypocrite, given his current role as a civil society activist with the NGO Republikka. 

A court, presided over by Magistrate Rachel Montebello, found that two articles that Mercieca published in July 2023 were defamatory against Delia.

The case dates back to July 2023, when Delia filed a defamation lawsuit against Mercieca following the publication of two articles on Mercieca’s blog, Simon Mercieca’s Free Press. Delia also argued that Mercieca failed to publish his right of reply properly.

The disputed articles alleged Delia had secretly opened negotiations with Ascent Media behind Schembri’s back. Mercieca claimed that the deal fell through after Delia increased the price of the transfer from Lm1.2 million to Lm10 million.

Mercieca claimed this was the reason why Delia avoided writing about Schembri.

The court first found that Mercieca failed to properly publish Delia’s right of reply, as it was not given equal prominence, since it was published under five pages of Mercieca’s rebuttal.

The court determined that many of Mercieca’s claims were exaggerated, false, or based on unreliable sources.

The only source mentioned by Mercieca was Ashley Galea, who the court noted was not directly involved in these negotiations, and his testimony was only based on what Schembri and his lawyer told him.

Although Mercieca argued that his statements should be protected as they were “fair comments”, the court disagreed, ruling that the claims seriously damaged Delia’s reputation.

“The Court finds that the plaintiff (Delia) has satisfactorily proven that the defendant’s (Mercieca) statements in the contested publications are defamatory within the meaning of the law because they carry a serious and inherently damaging meaning and are capable of causing significant harm to his reputation,” the court stated.

As well as the libel damaged, Mercieca was fined €300 for failing to publish Delia’s right of reply in accordance with the law.

Lawyers Andrew Borg Cardona, Eve Borg Costanzi and Matthew Cutajar represented Delia.

In April, Mercieca won a libel case against author Mark Camilleri after Camilleri accused Mercieca of forming part of the mafia and receiving money from Yorgen Fenech's mother.

Last year, the church slammed Mercieca, accusing him of false and defamatory allegations about members of the Ecclesiastical Tribunal.

In 2021, lawyer Arthur Azzopardi filed a libel suit against Mercieca over a blog post implicating the lawyer as a mastermind in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.