‘Prison director had SMU riot gear in his office’

Witnesses in a defamation case filed against MaltaToday by four prison warders and the former head of the Corradino Correctional Facility confirmed details that appeared in this newspaper’s piece on the conditions inside the State prison facility.

Dr Mario Scerri, who examined a prisoner who had been beaten up by warders, and convict Emanuel Camilleri – known as ‘Leli l-Bully’ – upheld reports published by this newspaper that a Dutch inmate had been severely beaten by prison guards.

Scerri said that he examined Dutch inmate Perry Ingomar Toornstra, who was serving a 15-year sentence for drug trafficking, after he was beaten by guards following a failed prison escape.

Scerri told the court on Wednesday that he found boot-marks on his back, which he said could be compatible with military service boots; as well as lacerations and abrasions all over the Dutchman’s body, lesions of blunt trauma.

“Toornstra did not offer resistance to beating…. This was a clear case of a beating. But he didn’t tell me who beat him except that it was CCF warders.”

Since the 2008 beating, warders Daniel Cuschieri and George Falzon have appealed a prison sentence of five years; while Francis Debono and Francis Meli, are also appealing a conviction of five years and three months’ jail.

MaltaToday is being sued for libel by other warders and former prison director Abraham Zammit in criminal libel proceedings over claims made by Toornstra in a letter to the newspaper.

During Wednesday’s sitting, prison inmate Emanuel Camilleri also told the court that Zammit kept a riot gear helmet in his office which he recognised as that of the notorious Special Mobile Unit, a riot squad from the 1980s that was later disbanded and reformed as the Special Assignment Group, the predecessor of the Rapid Intervention Unit.

“I used to act as a prisoners’ representative with [former director] Sandro Gatt  but this procedure changed under Abraham Zammit. He would give preference to other inmates: for example I was granted few visits to see my mum who was suffering cancer, while another inmate could visit his wife four times a week.”

Camilleri told the court he had been inside Zammit’s office some four times. “I saw SMU helmets. I told him this was no place for that kind of fear. There was a full riot gear. It was his hobby to collect this gear,” Camilleri said, saying that he recognised the uniform from having witnessed SMU officers beating people during Nationalist mass meetings back in the 1980s.

“I made a complaint to the Prison Board, to Dr Ivan Mifsud,” Camilleri said. “When I told Zammit that prison was no place for his SMU helmet, he just smiled about it, and said nothing.”