Nationalist MP Karol Aquilina has been cleared of charges relating to dangerous driving by a court on Wednesday after a magistrate found that accusations that he had tried to run over a policeman were untrue.
The MP made the announcement on social media.
Aquilina said that he had been cleared of all accusations made about him, warning his political adversaries that nothing will stop him from fighting for justice and speaking the truth.
He had been charged last May with dangerous driving over an incident two years ago and which had been exposed by Labour Party media.
The incident in question occurred in December 13 Road in Marsa in June 2019, when Aquilina was driving towards Valletta. Footage of the incident was aired by Labour television host Karl Stagno Navarra on his programme ‘Pjazza’. It was alleged that Aquilina did not obey ordered by two traffic policemen.
The police began investigating after Stagno Navarra demanded an investigation, threatening to pursue matters further in court if the matter was not investigated.
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“In his judgment, the Magistrate said that ‘the charges filed by the police were unsubstantiated’,” Aquilina said in his Facebook post.
“I have allowed judicial process to take its course over the past months. Now that the process has been concluded, I am proud to say that the disgusting campaign full of lies which Karl Stagno Navarra and the Labour Party stations led has burst in their faces,” he said.
Aqulina said that Stagno Navarra had lied about the incident when he said that he (Aquilina) tried to run over a police officer, drove through a red light and that he had tried to run over and hurt a police officer. Stagno Navarra had also lied when he had reported that Aquilina had abused of parliamentary privilege, he said.
In a statement welcoming the news, Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech said that Aquilina, who had resigned as PN justice spokesman and secretary of the parliamentary group when he was facing the charges, has been reinstated in the position he held previously.
The PN called for an investigation into how police internal footage had been leaked to One TV journalist Karl Stagno Navarra and was manipulated to carry out a character assassination campaign against Aquilina.