Last Saturday, four prison warders were detained and charged with beating and seriously injuring a foreign inmate: Perry Ingumar Toornstra, 32 from the Netherlands, who was allegedly assaulted in prison shortly after staging an unsuccessful escape attempt two weeks ago.
The fact that such prompt action was taken against the alleged perpetrators makes a welcome change, in a scenario that all too often lends itself to suspicions of public officials closing ranks to protect their own members from investigation. However, this unpleasant episode has also raised a number of pertinent questions regarding how the Corradino Correctional Facilities (CCF) are actually run, as well as highlighting a number of apparent discrepancies in the way foreign prisoners are treated by local warders.
The first of these questions concerns an apparent attempt to cover up the incident shortly after it took place. As things stand, MaltaToday was the first newspaper to report the allegations of brutality, in a front-page story last Wednesday. But in truth, the credit for bringing the suspects to trial must go to Prison Director Sandro Gatt, who heard reports of the alleged beating on Monday 11 August, and immediately informed the duty magistrate who commenced an investigation. Credit is also due to the chairman of the newly set-up prison visitors’ board, Ivan Mifsud, who is understood to have directly intervened to put a stop to the goings-on.
It must also be pointed out that the Dutch embassy immediately involved itself in the affair, raising the distinct possibility of some sort of diplomatic incident between the two countries. All this would account for the seriousness with which the authorities have taken the matter so far.
But it remains unclear why Toornstra’s attempted escape was not immediately reported in the form of a press release. This is standard practice in such cases, as evidenced also by the press release to announce Nicholas Azzopardi’s attempted escape from police custody on April 9 this year. And yet, on this occasion there was no announcement of any kind: doubly strange, considering that the prison authorities knew enough by Monday to initiate a magisterial inquiry into the incident.
Considering the gravity of the implications, it is highly unlikely that we are dealing with a simple oversight. This in turn leads us to consider other explanations to account for the secrecy with which the Toornstra incident was handled. One is that the circumstances of his attempted escape (especially the apparent laxity with which he was monitored during his hour’s leave from prison) would paint the prison authorities in a negative light. Another, in order to conceal from the public the serious allegation that Toorsntra was beaten soon after being re-captured.
Needless to add, neither provides a valid justification for withholding such information from the public. For this reason, the nation is owed an explanation for this incongruous state of affairs.
Meanwhile, The Times this week reported another, even more suspicious dimension to this story. It seems that the nurse who first examined Toornstra after the incident saw no reason why he should be seen by a doctor, still less taken to hospital. And yet, subsequent medical examinations revealed that the Dutch inmate had broken ribs and a fractured arm at the time. This was confirmed by a doctor on Monday, and in fact Toornstra was immediately taken to hospital that same day. One cannot but question the fact that a qualified nurse would apparently fail to diagnose such glaring injuries. Again, a number of possibilities present themselves: foremost of these, that the nurse in question may deliberately have overlooked the nature of his injuries, either out of antipathy towards the inmate (who by all accounts is a “difficult” prisoner), or under pressure from the prison warders involved in the alleged beating.
One last issue arising from this case involves the curious reluctance on the part of the prosecution to press for stiffer penalties, as is invariably the case with other suspects. Admittedly, Magistrate Silvio Meli chose to deny bail to the four suspects, who are now being detained in the Floriana lock-up for their own safety. This in itself is unusually severe treatment, considering that bail is often afforded even to persons suspected of committing murder. But more unusual still is the fact that the magistrate appears to have been acting on his own initiative. In fact, the prosecution in this case did not object to the defence counsel’s request for bail in the first place; nor did it object to the standard request for a ban on the publication of the suspects’ identity.
Such acquiescence is almost unheard of, from a prosecution which routinely objects to such requests in virtually each and every case.
One can only wonder if there is any connection between this apparent leniency on the part of the prosecution, and the fact that the four suspects happen to be prison warders, and therefore – theoretically, at least – on the same “side”.