Columnist Daphne Caruana Galizia testified in court today that she found it strange and stupid that One TV had opted to carry comments she had made into their microphone only for their reporter to then sue for libel.

She was testifying in proceedings for criminal libel instituted by the police at the request of One journalist Charlon Gouder.

She explained that on March 2, after she had attended court proceedings instituted by Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera, she had walked out of the court house with members of her family and had been harassed by a One TV cameraman, who followed them for half an hour as they walked down Sta Lucia and then back up to Republic Street.

She said that Jason Micallef, who heads One TV, had been 'lying' when he said in court in previous testimony that he was present during the incident, because he was not. She also found it strange that the former General Secretary of the Labour Party had claimed he had not known she was a journalist.

Amid the harassment, Ms Caruana Galizia said, she had spotted Charlon Gouder and walked towards him, intending to ask him about a reported case of his wallet having been stolen by a woman.

Mr Gouder moved away and therefore she turned to the camera and asked where Charlon Gouder had gone and whether he had gone with a prostitute, in view of a feature which had appeared on YouTube.

She had done so, Ms Caruana Galizia said, in order to stop the harassment and spoil the One footage.

She said the One cameraman had even lowered a boom microphone, which was, in itself a form of harassment and an invasion of her privacy since it could pick up her conversation with her lawyer.

Ms Caruana Galizia said it was strange and stupid that One had opted to air that footage. In so doing, they had libelled themselves, she said.

One TV, she said, had a problem with her because the One journalists were not really journalists, but part of a propaganda machine.