News • November 16 2003

Lobster’s 25-minute ride to hell

Kurt Sansone
A Maltese man nicknamed Lobster is the mastermind behind the transportation of illegal immigrants from Malta to Sicily according to an investigative report published in Italian magazine
Il Giornale.
Groups of between 35 and 40 illegal immigrants are hastily transported to the Sicilian coast in the dead of night by powerful speedboats departing from St Paul’s Bay and its environs.

The powerboat used to transport the illegal immigrants is too fast for the cumbersome patrol boats of the Armed Forces and the only helicopter that can operate at night is the one belonging to the Italian Military Mission. Catching the culprits is next to impossible, the magazine report claims, given the lack of resources available to the AFM.
The illegal immigrants pay an average of USD 1,000 (Lm360) each for the 25-minute trip to Pozzallo or Portopalo.
The investigative report claims that the police know who Lobster is. In the past he was found guilty of trafficking immigrants, but the incident happened before the law was made harsher and the man escaped with a pocket-sized fine.
Another report that appeared in Sicilian newspaper La Sicilia on 24 October had identified another person by the name of ‘Johnny’ as one of the powerboat drivers.
However, the persons involved in the illegal trafficking are part of a wider ring of criminals that extends to Tunisia and Libya. The Italian secret service, with the help of Tunisian-Maltese woman Zina Saidi (previously Grima as a result of her marriage to a Maltese man) who defected the criminal ring, has identified a web of criminals that extends from Hamamet and Sousse in Tunisia to the Libyan village Zuwarah.
Although the number of illegal immigrants departing from Malta has reduced drastically over the past year, half the ‘trade’ still exists.
The journalist who filed the report for Il Giornale, Gabriele Villa, also chronicles experiences of illegal immigrants held at the Hal Far detention centre, some of whom have been in captivity for more than two years.
Villa wrote that when the police guards told the detainees at Hal Far he was an Italian journalist they rushed to the gates each wanting to recount their personal tragedy.
And some of the stories are shocking indeed.
A young person from Sierra Leone with bullet scars on his body told his story: "What could have I done? Stay down there and die? All of us escaped but I don’t know who of my family has survived. We don’t have documents that’s true, but have you ever tried escaping? When you escape you don’t have time to pick up a piece of paper let alone the documents."
The number of illegal immigrants currently held in detention is 549. The Armed Forces are housing 364 in their barracks while 185 are under the responsibility of the police and are being held at the SAG headquarters in Ta’ Kandja and the Hal Far detention centre.
kurt@maltamag.com