Mifsud Bonnici silent on allegations of 18-year-old woman who was manhandled by St Julian’s police. Victim: ‘Superintendent Sharon Tanti told me not to report incident to Floriana HQ’
Karl Stagno-Navarra
Police superintendent Sharon Tanti asked a young woman not to report a case of manhandling at the hands of her subordinates, to the Floriana headquarters.
The case came to light on the same day that a police statement officially denied any knowledge of a new case of manhandling at the St Julians’ police station, revealed in the Wednesday edition of MaltaToday this week.
Following MaltaToday’s inquiries this week, which were met by silence from Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici, the police told this newspaper that the allegations are now being investigated. A police spoksperson asked MaltaToday to “forward all evidence on the allegations to the Police to assist in the investigations.”
The woman, 18 years of age, was reportedly arrested on July 12, for having carried a Chihuahua-sized dog in her bag at St. Georges bay, where according to the police it is not permitted to walk dogs on the beach.
“I just tried to politely reason with the police that it was ridiculous to turn up in four with a police car over a small dog,” the woman told MaltaToday, while adding that she was forcefully stopped by a tall police sergeant on the pavement, pushed to sit on a bench and verbally abused by the officer.
“I was called all sorts of names by the Sergeant, while the other officers just watched and laughed at me. I started to panic at their behaviour towards me,” she said.
“They called me a whore, a good-for-nothing, trash, ‘Tal-Pepe’, a crazy woman, while I cried in fear of their aggressiveness…” the woman said.
While she attempted to leave the bench where she sat before the police officers, a woman police constable was called to the scene, and subsequently dragged her into a police car and rushed to the St Julian’s police station.
Inside the car, the woman was seated at the back between a male and a woman constable, and while she cried, the woman constable attempted to forcefully shut her mouth with her hands.
“I instinctively reacted by trying to remove her hand from my jaw, and one of my fingernails scratched her upper gum and it bled, adding to a further reaction by the officers in the car,” she explained.
Once arrived at the station, the woman said she tried her best to ask the police officers if they really knew what they were doing.
Instead, the officers pushed her onto a bench and made her sit there, while they continued to verbally abuse her.
When she tried to react to this behaviour, the police officers forcefully dragged her into a cell and locked the door, while they got the dog out of the bag and tied his leash to the bars on the cell door.
“I was terrified of the officers and I cried my eyes out, as I didn’t know what else to expect from them,” she said.
Under shock, the woman reportedly passed out, and the officers phoned her mother to go to the station.
“I come from a very quiet family, and my mother was terrified to find me in such a state, and she just got me out of the station as quick as she could, vowing never to set foot in the station again,” she said.
But the ordeal didn’t stop here, as the young woman remained in shock for the next two days, while she noted severe bruising to her arms and leg.
As she photographed and documented the bruising, an acquaintance instructed her to go and report the case to Superintendent Sharon Tanti who oversees the St Julian’s precinct.
“As I walked into the station, I saw the same sergeant reading a newspaper, and as he saw me approach Superintendent Tanti’s office he rushed to her door also, as though in a bid to intimidate me once again before I opened my mouth. As I sat explaining what happened to me, he came in again, this time with Sharon Tanti telling him to understand the gravity of the situation since I had clear bruising, and that’s tantamount to bodily harm,” she said.
The woman explained that after relating her ordeal to the Superintendent, the officer asked her to leave the matter in her hands and insisted with her not to take the case to the Floriana headquarters.
“I was dealing with a senior officer. She asked me to leave it in her hands, and I kept the matter to myself, but since then a month has gone by and nobody has ever contacted me about the case, and it is about time something is done, before anybody else falls victim to the brutal and arrogant attitude of the St. Julian’s police,” she said.
But the woman lives in fear of the police, and has vowed never to seek the police for help, as according to her they all cover up for each other, and don’t protect the citizen at all.
“I am scared of a police uniform, and avoid them when I see one in the street. I cannot see myself asking them for any help, and I will have to live with this fear,” she said.
The young woman is now demanding justice to be done and action taken accordingly within the police force.
Questions forwarded to the Minister for Home Affairs Carm Mifsud Bonnici, about what action will be taken in the wake of such a story, were answered with the following.
“The Police Corps has an internal mechanism to deal with such allegations when these are reported. Investigations by the Internal Affairs Unit have, on various occasions, resulted in disciplinary steps being taken against particular officers or officers being charged in Court.
“Alternatively, the public can also turn to external bodies such as the Ombudsman or the Police Board which is a completely independent board appointed to oversee the Police Corps in terms of Cap 164, Articles 48-60.
“The Ministry for Justice and Home Affairs treats such cases seriously and moves to ensure that all necessary steps are taken to address them. It thus urges any individuals who allege that they have suffered such treatment from the Police to report this to the relevant authorities mentioned earlier as soon as possible.”
Excessive force timeline
May 2007 Police Sergeant David Sant, 46, is filmed by a tourist kicking French resident Catherine Sophie Pernot Sprangers in the chest, while in her car, outside the Bay Street mall in Paceville. Sant was jailed for four months for the assault of Sprangers. The Court of Criminal Appeal commuted the prison term to a one-year suspended sentence, after taking into account the clean criminal record of the accused. “If it weren’t for the newspaper MaltaToday, this crime would not have surfaced,” Chief Justice DeGaetano pointed out in his sentence.
June 2008 Sudanese immigrant Suleiman Ismail Abubaker and another immigrant claim they were beaten by St Julian’s police officers in separate incidents, leading to the suspension of four officers. The arraignment of another officer falls through because of lack of evidence. Abubaker would die a year later, allegedly from injuries to his head suffered from a body charge by a Paceville bouncer. The case is ongoing.
9 August 2009 Trevor Ciangura, 21, from Rabat files a complaint with the Police’s internal investigations office after claiming to have been brutally kicked and punched by police officers inside the St Julian’s station yard, while the duty sergeant stood in the main doorway, allegedly to block anybody from entering the station while the beating was taking place.
18 August 2009 The St Julian’s police face fresh allegations, this time involving an 18-year-old woman, who was allegedly pulled by the hair and dragged into a police car, taken to the St Julian’s police station and slapped in the face for having reportedly “answered back” to an officer who asked her not to walk her dog on the beach in St George’s Bay.
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