Satirist Matthew Bonanno cleared of online threats against Gordon Manche
Court ruled that claims of carpet bombing never referred to Manche and were clearly satirical and not executable
Satirist Matthew Bonnano has been cleared of having made online threats against Gordon Manche, the pastor of the evangelical group River of Love when he implied that the group, and Buġibba, should be carpet bombed.
The court ruled that the threat could not be deemed to be “credible” or even “executable” as Bonanno clearly did not have the resources to order carpet bombing. This meant that his words were satirical, hyperbolic and artistic and merited legal protection.
Magistrate Kevan Azzopardi went on to add that Bonanno’s comments referred to River of Love and not its pastor. Even though Manche was the pastor and head of the group, just as the archbishop was the head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Malta, any comments against the Church were not directed at the archbishop.
Reacting to the judgment Bonanno, the owner of satirical website Bis-Serjeta, said: "I'm glad common sense prevailed and the courts saw my comment as the obvious joke it was. In my opinion, the whole thing was a massive waste of time and resources for myself, the police and the courts."
The case dates back to January 4, 2022, when Manche filed police reports claiming he felt threatened by comments made on Bonanno’s personal profile page.
In the Facebook comment, Bonanno argued that the evangelical group should be “treated exactly like ISIS”. Another Facebook user – Matthew Bugeja - replied to the post saying Malta could not afford “a sustained aerial bombing campaign on Żebbuġ [where River of Love was located]”. Bonanno replied to him, suggesting relocating River of Love to Buġibba, “then carpet bomb. Two birds with one stone”.
Manche told police he felt threatened as Bonanno was a known personality and posted the comments under his personal profile and not in the context of his popular satirical website Bis-Serjeta.
Bonanno has since become a Times of Malta journalist.
Manche added that the Facebook comments were posted just days after the murder of Paulina Dembska in Sliema. The man charged with that crime, Abner Aquilina, had attended River of Love meetings. He told police that the devil spoke to him and told him to “kill more people”.
Manche, pushed back against any links to the crime and also started legal action against Times of Malta seeking to have news reports about the crime taken offline.
Police eventually charged both Bonanno and Bugeja with the misuse of electronic equipment and making online threats. But the magistrate cleared them of the first charge after noting that the police had not produced evidence as to what the use of the electronic equipment was meant to be, and therefore could not prove it was misused.
As for the online threats, after quoting caselaw, the magistrate noted that the words used by both Bonanno and Bugeja could not be deemed to be realistic threats.
In fact, the magistrate noted, Manche had continued living his normal routine, suggesting he did not really feel that threatened.
Lawyers Dean Hili and Andrew Sciberras represented Bonanno while Stephen Tonna Lowell appeared for Bugeja.