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Matthew Vella
The mortuary at the Gozo hospital is the source of consternation on the sister island, as the bodies of five foreigners, believed to be immigrants who were crossing through the Mediterranean, have been kept in body bags at the mortuary for months on end pending a court decision to release them for burial.
The bodies had been fished out of the sea, and remain unidentified.
The decomposition of the bodies has been further aggravated due to a breakdown in the refrigeration system of the mortuary. The smell at the mortuary has been described as “nauseating”, and worms have set in into the bodies still locked inside their body bags. Problems with the refrigeration, sources said, worsened the situation to such an extent that worms can be seen creeping out of the refrigeration system itself.
Gozo Minister Giovanna Debono has told MaltaToday she was aware of the problems with the refrigeration system but that necessary precautions had been taken straight away.
“The problem concerns the order from the Courts to bury the bodies. I am in constant communication with the Commissioner of Police, making pressure for these bodies to be released from the mortuary, but the Courts have still not decided,” Debono said.
The minister even spoke to her cabinet colleague, parliamentary secretary in the Ministry for Home Affairs and Justice Carmel Mifsud Bonnici to put pressure on the courts to issue the order for burial.
“I don’t know exactly what he has done, but I am sure he is doing his best,” Debono said. “I am placing as much pressure as possible to get this order out to have the bodies buried.”
Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici told MaltaToday however there was little he could do: “I told the Commissioner of Police to see that they collaborated as best as possible with the Gozo magistrate on the case, and they did. But now it is in the hands of Magistrate Paul Coppini, and I cannot force the hand of the magistrate.”
Mifsud Bonnici said it was up to the magistrate to compile the inquest report: “There is a backlog of some 1,500 inquests before Magistrate Paul Coppini, some of them going back 12 years. So it is up to him to complete the inquest and order the burial of the bodies.
“From our end we are doing our utmost to reform the criminal court by cutting out inquests on energy theft next year, and also decrease the laborious process for the compilation of evidence.”
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
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