Pierre Portelli has resigned from the PN's executive, following a meeting with the party's leader Bernard Grech, Times of Malta can confirm.

In a letter to the executive's president, Portelli says he had stopped turning up for meetings, automatically revoking his membership.

He told Alex Perici Calascione that in case his intentions had not been made clear enough through his absence from the meetings, he was formally resigning.

"I'm asking you to accept my resignation so that no one will use me to cause damage to the PN in light of recent stories that relate to the time when I was the executive chairman of Media.Link.

"I reserve the right to reply to these stories when I feel it is the right time, however, I don't want people who harbour ill intent to use such stories to damage the party," the letter reads.

The letter sent to the Alex Perici Calascione.

The former editorial director of The Malta Independent, Portelli is widely believed to be the man who had encouraged Adrian Delia to stand for the PN leadership contest. 

He had been appointed head of Media.Link by the former leader, a role he relinquished in 2019. In June of that year Portelli resigned from his role as head of the Nationalist Party's media company, launching a scathing attack on members of the parliamentary group.

Last year his name was brought up in court when former chief of staff Keith Schembri said the PN used to send its head of media to collect €20,000 every month from Yorgen Fenech.

The claim had been promptly denied by Portelli, who produced a sworn statement made before a notary to that effect. A denial was also issued by Delia.

Earlier this week Lovin Malta reported that Portelli had reached out to Fenech to ensure an article claiming that the PN’s youth wing had been taken over by anti-corruption groups like Occupy Justice, was published in Labour Party-leaning media, following their calls for then-leader Adrian Delia to resign.