Another threat: former soldier says Metsola should be hanged

Nationalist MEP Roberta Metsola has received another threat, with a former soldier saying she deserves to be hanged.

Metsola found herself at the receiving end of a number of threats after last week’s vote in Strasbourg, in which the European Parliament strongly approved a resolution calling on the police commissioner to investigate Malta’s links to the Panama Papers.

As had happened in other similar debates, the PN MEPs were accused of being traitors and of wantonly damaging the country’s reputation abroad.

Commenting on Facebook beneath a story on the PN MEP, Felix Zammit said he believed the ‘ forka’ (capital punishment) should also apply to “these people”, not just to soldiers who betrayed their country. “Aren’t they (the PN MEP’s) doing the same thing?”

Many condemned Zammit’s comment, with others pointing out that making threats is a crime that is aggravated when the person making them is a public official.

Contacted by this newsroom, an Armed Forces of Malta spokesperson said Zamit was retired and no longer served in the AFM.

Zammit’s comments came on the same day that another individual said Roberta Metsola “deserved to be burned alive.”

A certain Emmanuel Navarro wrote on Facebook: “All of you, especially you traitor (Metsola), do not only deserve condemnation but to be burned alive, cow dung.”

The Nationalist Party condemned the comments and called on Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar to investigate and arraign Navarro.

But fellow MEP David Casa revealed that no action had been taken by the police back in March when another individual had threatened to hang him.

Recently, controversy erupted when a serving police sergeant celebrated the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in a similarly disgusting Facebook post. Sergeant Ramon Mifsud had uploaded a Facebook status which read “Had wara had tasal ta kulhadd demel!!!!! Feeling happy :) [sic]” (Everyone gets what they deserve, cow dung).

Mifsud had been mentioned on a number of occasions on Caruana Galizia’s blog. He has since been suspended and is awaiting disciplinary proceedings.