Nationalist journalist Dione Borg’s seminal book Libertà Mhedda (“Freedom Under Threat”) details police atrocities and institutionalised violence happening in the 1980s against PN activists under the Mintoff/Mifsud Bonnici regime.
Frame-ups, cover-ups and in-your-face violence are documented in painstaking detail as recounted by the victims and through court proceedings.
For the Nationalist Party and its pundits, the eroding civil liberties and abuse of power remain something of the blurred Labour years that need to be spelt out to the younger generations, lest they forget what the country had to go through in its recent history.
Now, a certain Nicholas Azzopardi has removed the threat of collective amnesia by immortalising his indicting statement from his deathbed, claiming to have been severely beaten up by police while under interrogation.
And yet, the PN and its media found no news value whatsoever in 2008 European Malta, when human rights and civil liberties should be more safeguarded than ever, under their own administration of government.
The death of a 38-year-old husband and father of two children while under the charge of the police is no longer shocking news for the ruling party that claims to have defended civil liberties for all of us.
So it had to be his brother and father to come out, on their own, with the shocking revelations made by Azzopardi himself, just hours before he died in hospital.
Nobody, except the police officers themselves, know exactly what happened behind those grim walls of the Floriana Police Headquarters, the same scene of the murder of Nardu Debono in 1980 – later dumped at Wied ic-Cawsli in Qormi – under Police Commissioner Lawrence Pullicino.
Today, the police have a lot of questions to answer, which for the time being they won’t under the pretext of an ongoing inquiry. Two inquiries, to be exact, for reasons which remain unclear. Because as the Chamber of Advocates and the Opposition have pointed out, while Inquiring Magistrate Tonio Vella has yet to conclude his investigation, government showed a lack of trust in the judicial process by appointing retired judge Albert Manchè to conduct a parallel inquiry.
In the meantime, Magistrate Vella’s unenthusiastic attitude in getting Azzopardi’s version of events has come out in full force when the victim’s brother recounted last week how the magistrate only went to interrogate him in hospital upon the repeated insistence of his family, which included pressure from the justice minister himself.
The victim’s conflicting version sheds serious doubts on the official police statement, which claimed that he fell, or jumped, from the wall behind police headquarters.
Beyond that, all the other information trickling from Floriana came out in the form of defensive, anonymously-sourced allegations that have yet to be proved.
Incidentally, this is not the first time the police attempt to clear their name without providing the much needed answers. That was Commissioner John Rizzo’s stance when he came out to defend the police officers who killed Bastjan Borg, precisely a year ago today.
Borg was discharged from Mount Carmel psychiatric hospital a few days before he was killed by police officers, and his family had forewarned the police and the hospital authorities about his deteriorating mental condition, to no avail.
Citing self-defence, Police Commissioner John Rizzo was quick to defend his three officers who tried restraining Borg as he threw a fit of anger in Correa Street, Qormi.
But in an impassioned letter published days later, Borg’s family revealed the authorities’ indifference to their plight, the shocking inaction that led to their relative’s killing.
“We, the family, were amazed, Mr Commissioner, how in your press conference you did not mention that we had been calling the authorities at Mount Carmel Hospital, the social worker responsible for him and the Qormi and Msida police stations for five days beforehand telling them that Bastjan was not well and needed to be admitted to hospital,” his family wrote.
“We do not believe that this information had not reached you but we will give you the benefit of the doubt and ask you to track down the phone calls that have been made to the Qormi police station so that you can listen with your own ears to the excuses which the police were bringing up when we, and Bastjan's mother, phoned, imploring the police for help.
“We knew that the more time passed, the more Bastjan could become aggressive and it would have been much easier for the police to restrain him when he had first entered this mental state.
“But, it seems as though the police didn't believe us and we were given replies such as: ‘I am alone in the police station’ or ‘the shift has changed now’, and ‘I don't know anything about this, you'd better wait for tomorrow's shift’… Whatever the case, the police did not carry out their duty. Bastjan's killing could have been avoided. Without doubt the police acted in a careless way, irresponsibly and with incompetence and this led to the loss of a husband and a father to his wife and son respectively.”
In the meantime, the police, the Mount Carmel Hospital authorities and home affairs ministry hid behind the magistrate’s inaction to refrain from taking a stand on the killing.
In Azzopardi’s case, the police versions do not tally among themselves, let alone with the victim’s account. Police Inspector Louise Calleja first told Reno Azzopardi – Nicholas’s brother – that his brother had jumped out of a window. The official police statement had said Azzopardi “jumped on the side where there is a trade school”, while an unofficial version that came out last week claims he could be seen on CCTV walking in the police yard before jumping off the bastion wall.
Even if the last version were true, the police have a lot to answer about what happens to people under their custody. They have to give a minute-by-minute account of Nicholas’s movements since he entered their headquarters. They have to specify the names and ranks of the people who dealt with him, who gave which orders, and who executed them.
The police have to indicate exactly where Nicholas “fell”, provide pictures and footage of the location, explain how he was retrieved, rescued and handled thereafter.
They also have to explain who accompanied Nicholas to Mater Dei, who watched outside his room, who went inside and for what reasons.
Well-built, extremely fit and a regular free diver weighing around 120kg, his brother Reno describes Nicholas as full of life and always wanting to help others.
Azzopardi was called to the police headquarters on 8 April on the vague allegations that he was “behaving suspiciously” with his six-year-old daughter, just days after he had won her custody.
His colleagues at Enemalta speak of him as a selfless man, a hard working senior health and safety operator, very keen on his colleagues’ safety and a great man to work with.
“Unlike some of his colleagues he did not stop by grumbling and complaining but used to move around the areas where he used to work and bring about to the attention to his superiors any health and safety hazards in a most constructive way,” one of his fellow workers says.
Two senior operators who worked with him went to see him in hospital while he was recovering. They have also heard Azzopardi talking about his ordeal, telling them how he was beaten by the police.
As the truth waits to come out, Reno Azzopardi says this is a story that could happen to any citizen, and it is in this spirit that he and his family intend to keep pressing for the full facts to emerge.
Unless, that is, the magistrate – and separately appointed judge – decide to sit on yet another inquiry report for a whole year, banking on collective amnesia… as happened in the case of Bastjan Borg.

Timeline of a death in custody
Tuesday 8 April – Nicholas receives a phone call in the evening from Inspector Graziella Muscat, asking him to go to the police headquarters in Floriana with his daughter. Later the police say Azzopardi is taken to hospital for the first time at around 9pm, suffering from chest pains.

Wednesday 9 April – Azzopardi is taken for the second time to hospital at around 4am, according to the unofficial police version given last week.
At around 7.40pm, the police issue an official press statement claiming that a man under investigation “escaped from his police escort and jumped”. At around 8.45pm, the police issue an update saying the man was certified of having broken ribs and was in danger of dying.
Azzopardi’s family are called by phone at around 9.30pm and asked to go to police HQ. They are met by Inspector Louise Calleja, who tells them Nicholas had injured a police man before jumping from a window. Informs them he is in danger of dying at the Mater Dei’s Intensive Therapy Unit. Upon reaching hospital, family are told by doctors that Nicholas was seriously injured in the rib cage, his lungs were totally crushed, had multiple fractures to left arm and was suffering internal bleeding.

Thursday 17 April – A restless Nicholas makes first attempts – in vain –to communicate to his family by writing on a mobile phone.

Friday 18 April – Still restless, Nicholas tries again to communicate through oxygen mask.

Saturday 19 April – Nicholas wakes up and talks to his brother for the first time in the evening. He recalls being led to a cell by two policemen dressed in blue without a number, where he was eventually beaten. He recounts how he resisted in self-defence, pushing one of the police against the metal bars. After this, he received sidekicks to his chest and started spitting blood from his mouth. He tells his brother he could remember their faces clearly. Family phones Nicholas’s lawyer, Raphael Fenech Adami, who arrives in hospital to hear his client’s version and informs Magistrate Tonio Vella.

Sunday 20 April – Nicholas repeats his version to his parents.

Monday 21 April – Family members try contact Justice Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici through his canvassers as the magistrate has not yet turned up to interview Nicholas. Minister’s canvassers reassure family that the magistrate would visit him the next day.

Tuesday 22 April – Nicholas is released from ITU and transferred to Orthopaedic ward 1. Breathing apparatus is removed. Magistrate interrogates him in the morning and again at 5.30pm, accompanied by Assistant Police Commissioner Michael Cassar and Inspector Graziella Muscat. Nicholas’s brother pleads to magistrate to provide 24-hour security as his room was accessible to everyone but is informed that such a measure was up to the hospital’s authorities.
Family receives phone call at 11pm and is asked to rush to hospital. Upon reaching his bed, Nicholas is dead. Brother recalls seeing large bruises on his left chest side, left ear and behind it, left buttocks and kidney area.

Wednesday 23 April – Autopsy completed but report never issued