Chopper (and dear God aren't you living up to that name),
Putting a flimsy question mark, using terms like 'allegedly', or 'it doesn't look good', or offering to apologise if you're wrong in no way absolves you from the content of what you said. You have made an unsubstantiated and potentially damaging comment about people who've done no wrong and need to either publish your evidence or withdraw the statement.
To give you a basic legal grasp, it's rather like my saying, 'Are you talking bollocks?', 'You seem to be talking bollocks. It doesn't look good' and 'You are talking bollocks.'
The window dressing varies, but the content is semantically and legally the same.