The Times, Mintoff in out-of-court settlement over pending cases

An out-of-court settlement has been reached between The Times and Dom Mintoff over pending court cases relating to a letter to the editor headed "Mintoff's largesse", carried in the newspaper in October 2002 and over other matters.

In the letter, a correspondent had referred to a report of a speech made by Finance Minister John Dalli, and carried in The Times on September 16, 2002, about the sale of shares in Bank of Valletta to Banco di Sicilia. He had quoted Mr Dalli as saying that the shares had been given away for free.

Mr Mintoff complained that the letter was defamatory as it alleged that he had not been prudent in his management of public funds. The Civil Court had found for Mr Mintoff but the Criminal Court acquitted the then editor, Victor Aquilina, of the charge. Mr Mintoff and Mr Aquilina appealed the respective judgments.

In the settlement, Mr Aquilina declared he stood by the stand he had taken in the court cases and confirmed the plea that the newspaper was covered by qualified privilege as laid down in the Press Act when it carried, in the October 14, 2002 issue, a letter to the editor headed "Mintoff's largesse" over the sale of the shares to Banco di Sicilia.

Settlement was reached after evidence in the hearing showed that in 1974 the Malta Development Corporation had tried to sell its 40 per cent shareholding in Bank of Valletta to the public. The corporation only managed to sell 9.6 per cent of the shareholding at Lm360,000, leaving a little more than 30 per cent of the shareholding in its hands.

In 1975, the corporation sold 20 per cent of the shares in Bank of Valletta to Banco di Sicilia for Lm858,000. This showed a profit of Lm108,000 over the price at which BoV shares had been sold to the public.

Following the declaration, Mr Mintoff renounced the pending appeal case before the Criminal Court and Mr Aquilina renounced his appeal before the Civil Court.

As part of the settlement, Mr Mintoff also declared that the declaration he had made in court on October 7, 2003, in a case over comments made at a public meeting in Floriana on April 3, applied also to Allied Newspapers Limited and to its directors.

In this case, the present editor of The Times, Ray Bugeja, and two former editors, Mr Aquilina and Charles Grech Orr, had withdrawn a libel suit against Mr Mintoff after he (Mr Mintoff) declared in court that "he does not know the three editors to be bought but knows that, as editors, they abide by the newspaper's policy and further declares that he did not make any reference to them during his speech".

In view of this declaration, Allied Newspapers Limited and its directors renounced any intention to take criminal action against Mr Mintoff.

Meanwhile, Progress Press Company Limited is also publishing an agreement reached with Mr Mintoff on July 31, 2002 over passages dealing with the former prime minister, and to which the latter had objected, carried in the book by Joan Alexander entitled Mabel Strickland, published and printed by Progress Press in 1996.

Progress Press did not admit to any responsibility at law as publisher of the book for the contents of the parts objected to by Mr Mintoff and declared that it entered into the agreement without prejudice to its stand that as publisher it was not liable in terms of the Press Act for such contents.

In the light of Mr Mintoff's complaint that the allegations by the author were unfounded, it was agreed that with immediate effect Progress Press undertook not to sell or distribute any further copies of the book to third parties and that, in case of future publications, it would omit all passages to which Mr Mintoff had objected to, namely:

The reference in pages 86 and 181 that Dom Mintoff was said to have served coffee to the Mountbattens and to Ros Coleridge and Louis Mountbatten at the age of six;

In page 181, that Dom Mintoff was said to have published against his name in the Malta's "Who's Who" the degree of M.A., Engineering Sciences, of the University of Oxford, and to have admitted to the Reverend Basil Watson that in fact he had never obtained that degree because "he had never stayed to take the finals" and, in page 198, that it was said that Mr Mintoff had alleged that Miss Strickland had tried "to bribe him and to buy him".

Progress Press agreed to pay Mr Mintoff Lm700 in settlement of the expenses disbursed and legal fees.