Cap. 50 Art. 7Defence.

(1) A person who is or has been a public servant or government contractor is guilty of an offence if without lawful authority he makes a damaging disclosure of any information, document or other article relating to defence which is or has been in his possession by virtue of his position as such.

(2) For the purposes of subarticle (1) a disclosure is damaging if -

(a) it damages the capability of, or of any part of, the armed forces to carry out their tasks or leads to loss of life or injury to members of those forces or serious damage to the equipment or installations of those forces; or

(b) otherwise than as mentioned in paragraph (a), it endangers the interests of Malta abroad, seriously obstructs the promotion or protection by Malta of those interests or endangers the safety of Maltese citizens abroad; or

(c) it is of information or of a document or article which is such that its unauthorised disclosure would be likely to have any of those effects. disclosure would be damaging within the meaning of subarticle (1).

(4) In this Article "defence" means -

(a) the size, shape, organisation, logistics, order of battle, deployment, operations, state of readiness and training of the armed forces of Malta;

(b) the weapons, stores or other equipment of those forces and the invention, development, production and operation of such equipment and research relating to it;

(c) defence policy and strategy and military planning and intelligence;

(d) plans and measures for the maintenance of essential supplies and services that are or would be needed in time of war.