L-illum qed jippublika eżatt kif inhi miktuba fuq l-istatus ta' Patri Mark Montebello fuq Facebook. Qed nippublikawha bil-lingwa Ingliża biex ma nkunu bdilna xejn minn kif Patri Montebello kitibha. Montebello talab lil The Times biex jirranġaw xi partijiet minn dak li qalilhom meta intervistrawh permezz tat-telefon, iżda l-editur minflok ippublika kelma b'kelma dak li ntqal waqt it-telefonata għalkemm skont il-patri l-editur qatt m'avżah li qed jirrekordjah.
Sadattant Montebello qal li jekk wieħed jaqra dak li kiteb l-editur ta' The Times u dak li qal hu eżatt xorta m'hemmx dak li fehmu ħafna nies li kien hu li offra lil Edgar xi somma flus. Barra hekk issa ħareġ ukoll li skont The Malta Independent tressaq każ quddiem il-qorti u kontra Mark Montebello li pprova jxaħħam xhieda f'każ li għadu għaddej fil-qorti.
Dan hu dak li hemm pubblikat fuq l-istatus tal-facebook ta' Fr Mark Montebello
Sent to the The Times and Sunday Times editor at 1.32 pm on Sunday, 9 November, 2014:
NO INTERMEDIARY
Dear Sir, there must have been some misunderstanding with regard to the report by Matthew Xuereb in today’s Sunday Times on the cash offered to silence the alleged victim of Fr. Charles Fenech. May I make it clear that I had not been in any way an intermediary in the matter. What happened was that, while speaking with Edgar Bonnici Cachia on the phone about some other matter, I mentioned in passing that it came to my attention that money had been offered to the alleged victim and that it had been refused. Mr Bonnici Cachia told me that he was aware of such cases and that neither he nor the alleged victim were for sale. I vouch that I had not passed on to him or to someone else any message on behalf of anyone. May I add that I consider such money offering to be unethical and immoral, and that I would never accept to be part of such dealings.
FR MARK MONTEBELLO O.P.
__________________________________________________
At 10.22 pm Sunday I was informed by the Times night editor, Mr Mark Wood, that "Matthew Xuereb has stood by his story. In the light of this, we cannot publish your reply, at least at the moment. The editor will examine both versions very closely tomorrow and will then make a decision. I wish matters had been more straightforward so we could have cleared this straight away but that is as it stands right now."
___________________________________________________
The Times only published the response at 11.04 am the day after (Monday, Nov 10), together with the transcript of Matthew Xuereb's original conversation with me (made, most probably, from a recording of which I had not been informed beforehand). Matthew emailed me the transcript Monday morning at 9.30 am, to which, at 10.08 am, I made the following response:
"This transcript does NOT say what you wrote in the article. By your article everyone understood that I was offering Edgar money on someone else's behalf. That's not what I told you, and couldn't have, because that's NOT what happened. I don't know whether you or Edgar invented this story of ME offering money on someone else's behalf, but I sure know that your article portrayed me as an accomplice in a crime. And this, to my view, is libellous. Now, I am most willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. That's why I stated that there was a 'misunderstanding', and I honestly think that that was the case, though a very unfortunate one. So, I request once more that, as is my legal right, The Times tomorrow publishes my response with the same prominence (on page 1) given to your article. I am copying this email to the Editors for them to act on it as requested. While giving you my best regards, sorry to say I cannot accept yours, for you have done me great harm, wasted my time, and gravely tainted my reputation."
_________________________________________________________
To make things worse, at 12.49 pm, almost two hours after The Times' story appeared, the most absurd thing happened: The Independent broke news that "a criminal complaint was filed this morning (Monday) against Dominican priest Fr Mark Montebello, the accusation being that he tried to bribe a witness in a case involving alleged sexual abuse".
