The flippancy of the Justice and Home Affairs Ministry in its reaction to MaltaToday’s front-page revelation last Wednesday, of the suicide of a British inmate at Corradino Correctional Facility has betrayed the prevalent attitude of government towards the media, and its disregard for the serious conditions inside Division 6.
The death of Berry Charles Lee, whose body was discovered hanging in his cell early Tuesday afternoon, and who had spent just over six months there before committing suicide, is not only embarrassing for the Maltese government, but is a certificate of the problems haunting Corradino’s detention system. This is the reason why the government’s churlish reaction on Wednesday attempted to ignore the conclusions of the Council of Europe into the conditions inside Division 6, and de-link the desultory surroundings of this cell block with Lee’s death.
When the Committee for the Prevention of Torture condemned the entire division as substandard and recommended its closure with immediate effect, the prison administration responded by closing it down, temporarily. It was reopened with minimal refurbishment, initially to provide ‘induction’ to new prisoners, only to later resume its previous role as a punitive block for troublesome or uncooperative inmates.
As one former CCF inmate described Division 6: “hygienically it’s a disaster. The drainage system is a mess, there are huge rats which come swimming up the toilet through the drains, and it’s almost completely dark at all times of day.”
This horrid description of a detention centre was upheld by a Constitutional Court ruling in the case instituted by former inmate Meinrad Calleja, who successfully pleaded that the conditions in this division breached his fundamental rights – and by a report issued by the Council of Europe’s Committee For The Prevention of Torture and Degrading Treatment in 2005. Another Constitutional case, filed by British national Steven Marsden after spending two years in preventive custody at CCF, is expected to raise similar complaints of inhuman conditions in the prison’s Division Six.
The cell block is dubbed the ‘punishment’ ward by inmates, ostensibly for its lack of ventilation, very low lighting, and the lack of facilities that other prisoners have. Talking to MaltaToday shortly after his acquittal on appeal last November, Briton Steven Marsden claimed he was denied access to the prison library for three years, and that there were “rats running around the floor” in his cell.
Other complaints involve the inadequate lighting system, with a 12-volt system illuminating a block holding up to 17 inmates. Coupled with a general lack of windows, the low-voltage power system translates into near-total darkness at most times of the day.
But the real crux of the matter here is the type of security prisoners get inside Corradino. MaltaToday’s report into the suicide of Lee was yet another example of the media carrying out its rightful duty in reporting events that might have been otherwise kept under wraps by authorities keen on ignoring such events. Like NGOs, it is the media’s role to shadow the authorities in their proper execution of their roles.
Let us start with MaltaToday’s role in making the matter public.
When, on 9 April 2008, Nicholas Azzopardi was rushed to hospital suffering from severe injuries after an interrogation at the Floriana depot, the only public announcement of this fact was a bland police press release claiming that a man had sustained injuries in an attempted escape from police custody. Unaccountably, when Azzopardi died in hospital two weeks later, there was no announcement of any kind at all, despite the fact that he was still technically the police’s responsibility at the time. This automatically raises the question: why would the police announce an attempted escape, but then, not the death of the same detainee? And would any statement have been made at all, had this newspaper not publicised the story? There can be little doubt about it: the answer is a clear “No.”
Similarly in the case of Berry Charles Lee, MaltaToday would have been criminally negligent not to publish the story and give it the prominence it deserved.
In the Azzopardi case, his safety was the sole and direct responsibility of the police force from the moment he crossed the threshold of the Floriana depot. No matter the circumstances, the prison authorities must assume responsibility for all those who enter CCF and is taken under the care and monitoring. Especially in the conditions that Lee was allegedly in, this inmate should have been kept under close monitoring given as his psychological state inside Division 6 should have already rang alarm balls for the CCF authorities.
MaltaToday stands by the rightful coverage it gave to a tragic death that should have never occurred in the first place.
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The flippancy of the Justice and Home Affairs Ministry in its reaction to MaltaToday’s front-page revelation last Wednesday, of the suicide of a British inmate at Corradino Correctional Facility has betrayed the prevalent attitude of government towards the media, and its disregard for the serious conditions inside Division 6..>>
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