Court dismisses criminal libel case against newspaper over Frans Sammut obituary

A criminal libel suit filed by Catherine Sammut, the widow of author Frans Sammut, against MaltaToday managing editor Saviour Balzan and Mark Anthony Vella in 2012 has been dismissed by the courts.

The case involved an obituary that was penned by Vella, published on 8 May 2011.

Sammut felt that the obituary was incorrect in stating that her late husband’s literary career had been a failure and that he was “boisterous and booming” and “teetering on the fringes of the loony left and exhibiting the phlegm of the stereotypical Żebbuġi.“

She also claimed that Vella intended to negatively portray her husband by writing that he had gone “from sixties rebel to virulent retrograde.”

Sammut also said that she felt the article to be particularly defamatory as it was published just four days after his death.

Vella, during testimony, told the court that the article was intended to examine Sammut’s literary achievements as well as his life beyond his work. He also explained that he felt honoured to write the obituary about the author.

“Sammut had a past and a political profile and an interesting public profile, and in some way I combined the two stories together to show the different facets of this complex personality. I can say that I wrote what I wrote with a great deal of admiration.”

The court noted that the obituary would not have been defamatory to the ordinary reader, adding that the widow must respect the fact that Frans Sammut, as a public person, was subject to criticism.

The obituary “appears to be a reflection of the opinion and the impression that author Mark Anthony Vella had of Frans Sammut, so much so that Vella, in his testimony had insisted that he saw Frans Sammut as a pillar of Maltese literature.”

Vella was acquitted of criminal libel.

Inspector Robert Vella prosecuted while lawyers Veronique Dalli and Dean Hili were defence counsel.