A man who admitted sending anonymous hate mail to several public figures who are critical of the government will be the subject of a pre-sentencing report in December with a judgment later, a court decided on Monday.
Joseph Mary Borg, 71, of Valletta last month changed an earlier plea and admitted to writing a stream of anonymous letters, replete with vulgar and offensive language to various people.
Among them were the president of NGO Repubblika Robert Aquilina, former MP Jason Azzopardi as well as PN MPs Karol Aquilina, Beppe Fenech Adami and Ryan Callus.
Professor of surgery and opinion writer Kevin Cassar was also targeted.
Letters were also sent to their relatives.
One of those, Flavia Borg Bonaci, Azzopardi’s partner, subsequently testified in court how the letters caused her many sleepless nights and drove her to paranoia.
The letters were not only “voluminous” in number but were mailed mostly to the persons’ home addresses, thus indicating that the sender knew where these people lived, the prosecution pointed out.
Others were mailed to parliament or workplaces.
When testifying in court, Repubblika president Aquilina had described the letters as “photocopies” of narratives promoted by the Labour Party and thus appeared to indicate that whoever wrote them had been “brainwashed.”
After the accused changed his plea to guilty, the court put off the case to a later date so as to allow him more time to reconsider.
The charges were numerous and punishment was not slight, the magistrate had observed.
The accused was also charged with recidivism in light of a judgment delivered by the Court of Criminal Appeal in October 2018 whereby he had been placed under probation.
On Monday, Borg confirmed his guilty plea. The court upheld a defence request for a pre-sentencing report and deferred the case to December.
Inspectors Kevin Pulis and Ryan Farrugia prosecuted.
Lawyers Henry Antoncich and Joseph Calleja were defence counsel.
Lawyers Jason Azzopardi and Therese Comodini Cachia appeared parte civile.