A 17-year-old activist has dropped charges against two people who threatened her online after they apologised in court.

Eve Borg Bonello, activist and president of the PN's youth wing, Team Start, said she faced threats of death and sexual violence after she spoke up at protest calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat in 2019. She was 16 at the time. 

Soon after the speech, during the political crisis sparked by developments in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder case, she said she was warned she could end up assassinated like the journalist. 

Two of four people accused of hate speech appeared in court on Thursday in front of Magistrate Ian Farrugia.

Through her lawyer, Paul Borg Olivier, the teenager said she was ready to drop the charges if the two accused, Ganesh Azzopardi and Kelly Camilleri, made a public apology in court and vowed not to harass or molest her again or resort to hate speech in the future.

Magistrate Farrugia sternly warned them that their crime could have sent them to prison.

One of the accused, a mother-of-three, told the magistrate she did not want anyone to hurt any of her children after the court asked how she would have reacted if the young woman was one of her children.

Given this apology, Borg Bonello withdrew the charges.

Speaking to Times of Malta afterwards, she said: “I was never after a pound of flesh, however I wanted to make it clear that what happened wasn’t OK, and I genuinely felt unsafe."

She said she was a strong advocate of freedom of speech but "it’s not a carte blanche to threaten and encourage violence.We need to understand that hate speech is not OK in a normal democratic society."

On a Facebook post she said she wanted to send the message that there were legal consequence for encouraging violence against people.

Lawyer Alfred Abela represented Azzopardi.