MLP general secretary awarded damages

The Nationalist Party daily was yesterday ordered to pay the MLP general secretary Lm500 libel damages over the publication of claims that he had links to Lay Lay.

Mr Justice Geoffrey Valenzia upheld the writ for libel damages filed by Jimmy Magro against in-Nazzjon over the publication of a picture of Magro with a caption claiming he was a shareholder in a Lay Lay company in an election 1998 supplement published with the newspaper on September 3, 1998.

Magro denied ever forming a company with Lay Lay or having shares in any of his companies. The newspaper had tried to attack his credibility because the allegation was published in the context of corruption in the signing of a promise of sale agreement with a Lay Lay company.

Magro said the allegation could have led to his dismissal from the post of MLP general secretary.

Mr Justice Valenzia noted that Magro had not accepted a correction published by in-Nazzjon the following week, in which Zahra had explained that Magro was chairman of the company Quarry Limited as an MDC representative.

The company had originally belonged to Lay Lay but the MDC had acquired half its shares.

Magro said the correction was not acceptable to him because it had been published too late since the allegations were made close to the 1998 general elections and at a time when he could not rebut the allegations made about him.