A local consultancy group and two of its directors have filed four libel suits against The Shift News and Matthew Caruana Galizia over a series of publications alleging that the group was involved in tax fraud with the prime suspect behind Jan Kuciak’s assassination.

Following the murder of the 27-year old Slovak journalist, shot dead with his girlfriend in February, 2018, Mr Caruana Galizia, whose mother had also been assassinated four months earlier, had tweeted that Marian Kocner, the chief suspect behind Kuciak’s murder, allegedly used Malta for “money laundering and tax evasion”.

He alleged that the Slovak businessman had used shell and holding companies set up and administered by lawyer Christian Ellul and accountant Karl Schranz of Ellul and Schranz Group, “a sort of mini Mossack Fonseca”.

Kocner’s daughter had been married to Christian Ellul, but the two had since divorced.

Mr Caruana Galizia had alleged that Kuciak had been investigating tax fraud by Kocner and his Maltese advisors. “Yet nothing was done… and guess who won the fight,” Mr Caruana Galizia had tweeted.

Those tweets had been taken up by The Shift News, which had posted an article on the same subject titled “The man charged with Jan Kuciak’s murder, his links to Malta and what a safe can reveal,” also retweeting Mr Caruana Galizia’s tweets.

The publications prompted the filing of four libel suits, two of them by E&S Consultancy against Mr Caruana Galizia and Caroline Muscat of The Shift News, and two others against Mr Caruana Galizia by Christian Ellul and Karl Shranz respectively.

During the first hearing of all four suits on Thursday, the court, presided over by magistrate Rachel Montebello, dealt with preliminary issues. Since it appeared that Mr Caruana Galizia had not yet been served with notification of the applications filed in his regard, the court adjourned the hearing for further information. As for the other suit, the court granted the respondents 15 days within which to file their reply.

The cases continue later this month.

Lawyers Joseph Giglio and Sarah Mifsud are counsel to the applicants. Lawyer Andrew Borg Cardona is counsel to to Ms Muscat and The ShiftNews.

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