Man Cleared of All Wrongdoing Demands Right to Appeal

A Gibraltar man who was fully vindicated, comprehensively cleared and completely exonerated has this week demanded the legal right to challenge his exoneration in court, on the grounds that he was exonerated incorrectly.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons because he keeps issuing press releases with his name on them, told reporters he accepted the findings of the inquiry in full, welcomed them warmly, and would now be seeking to have fourteen of them quashed.

"The report is a total vindication," he explained, filing a thirty-six-page document explaining why the report is wrong. "I have never been more comprehensively cleared of anything in my life. That is precisely why I am appealing. To protect the clearing."

After examining four years of events, ninety-four witness statements and one meeting held at the man's home without minutes, the £8 million inquiry concluded there had been no conspiracy of any kind, only a group of close personal friends, each independently doing the wrong thing, at the same time, in the same direction. "It is no excuse that all three were old friends," the report observed. "Indeed, it makes it rather worse." The man has asked for this finding to be corrected to "best friends."

The report also found that although attempts had been made, no actual interference ever took place. The man welcomed this finding too, observing that he had now been cleared twice: once of the act, and once of the ability.

Evidence before the inquiry showed that at the height of the affair, shortly after midnight, the man sent the Attorney General a screenshot of the Constitution. Legal historians believe this to be the first recorded use of the Constitution as a goodnight text.

He added that the report was, in the end, only one man's view of the evidence, unlike his own view, which is also one man's, but the right man's.

Pressed on the apparent contradiction between being vindicated and going to court to complain about the vindication, he said there was no contradiction, and that anyone who saw one was engaged in a transparent political tactic. "You can absolutely accept the whole report and also believe the whole report is irrational, unlawful and unfair," he said. "That is called nuance. It is also called being right, which I was found to be, and which I am challenging."

That is called nuance. It is also called being right, which I was found to be, and which I am challenging.

Asked how he balanced his public duties with his private friendships, the man explained that there was no conflict of interest, merely a tension. The tension, now in its sixth year, is said to be doing well.

The cost of the original inquiry will be borne by the public. The cost of appealing its conclusions will also be borne by the public, on the constitutional principle that the public should never find out how much anything costs until it is finished.

At the time of going to press, the man was preparing a further legal challenge against this newspaper, this sentence, and the concept of being written about.