Correction and clarification: Alexander Sciberras

On 19 December last, I uploaded a blog-post titled ‘The lawyer who Konrad Mizzi paid €260,949 last year is Labour deputy mayor of Msida’, in which I identified Dr Alexander Sciberras as the lawyer who received this payment.

Dr Sciberras had informed me that same day that the information was wrong and I took the post down immediately. Libel proceedings began, but he offered to drop the case altogether if I were to publish a correction/retraction, which I considered decent of him, and agreed.

I must point out here that despite being part of Konrad Mizzi’s legal team in his two cases (civil and criminal) against me, Dr Sciberras has been invariably polite and civil towards me during proceedings and outside them. I noticed at the time that he was not a party to the extreme hostility demonstrated by Pawlu Lia, another member of the Minister’s legal team, who was the one who asked for the court to strip me of the right to protect my sources.

So here it is.

I confirm that the information that I received was factually incorrect and that Dr Sciberras was never in any way involved in the [Enemalta] engagement highlighted by the auditor general as irregular. I am also aware that Dr Sciberras was never in receipt of €260,949 for legal services rendered to the Energy Ministry at €170 an hour.

Whereas it wasn’t my intention to damage or harm Dr Sciberras’ reputation, I apologise unreservedly for any inconvenience and/or harm I may have caused to Dr Sciberras by this article.