The director of a supermarket told a newspaper editor and manager that former journalist Ivan Camilleri owed thousands of euro after a series of alleged shoplifting incidents, a court has heard.

Times of Malta editor-in-chief Herman Grech, and managing director Michel Rizzo said that ValYou boss Ray Mintoff initially "downplayed" a report that emerged in Malta Today.

But after persistent rumours, Mintoff told them the shoplifting incidents were a recurring problem and that Camilleri had repaid €5,000 of around "at least" €12,000 in goods which he believed had been taken and not paid for.

Grech and Rizzo were giving evidence at libel proceedings initiated by Malta Today managing editor Saviour Balzan and countersued by Camilleri, who claims the reports were lies. 

Grech described how Times of Malta's editors had initially backed Camilleri when a report about the alleged incident was published in Malta Today in October last year, even issuing a statement.

However, they later retracted the statement after fresh information about the case emerged. Camilleri was dismissed in December. 

Grech told a court that he and Rizzo had met with Ray Mintoff, one of the directors at Valyou supermarket last December, two months after he had “downplayed” the story, insisting that it had been “an innocent incident”, that such “things happened” and that the situation was not as it had been made out by Malta Today. 

Yet, afterwards, information reached the newsroom from “two, three, four” different quarters, claiming that Mintoff had not told them the whole truth, Grech said.

When confronted about this, Mintoff said that the alleged shoplifting had been going on for “months, if not years.”

However, the supermarket director had not wanted to kick up a fuss and had opted to agree upon repayment terms. He had said Camilleri had agreed to pay around €5,000.

Asked by Balzan’s lawyer whether anything else had happened in December to prompt retraction of Times of Malta's statement, Grech stressed that “the statement was based solely on the Valyou incident. Nothing else.”

Under cross-examination, Camilleri’s lawyer, Peter Fenech, pointed out that the €12,000 figure had never been mentioned by Mintoff himself when testifying in the proceedings. 

“So someone is lying,” pressed the lawyer. 

“That’s what Ray Mintoff told us,” Grech replied. 

That version tallied with that given by Rizzo, managing director at Allied Newspapers, who recalled how he had summoned the editors and the journalist concerned when the shoplifting story was first published. 

After hearing out Camilleri, who insisted that it had been a one-off incident, they had spoken with the supermarket director, who wrote it off as a “storm in a teacup.”

Having heard that from “the horse’s mouth”, Allied Newspapers had issued the statement defending their journalist. 

Yet, persistent rumours in the weeks that followed appeared to hint at something more. 

Rizzo and Grech then met Mintoff, one Saturday in December.

That was when he had revealed more, “taking us in confidence,” claiming that the amount allegedly shoplifted was “around €15,000 to €20,000.”

“We were alarmed and disappointed in Ivan, if true. I had full faith in him,” said Rizzo. 

The case continues in November.