Magistrate jails man caught mid-burglary, uses judgement to flag racism

A court has warned the “absolute minority of migrants” who paid no heed to Malta’s laws that it would deal with them “with an iron fist”. According to Magistrate Joseph Mifsud, this group “cast a shadow over law-abiding refugees”.

The Magistrate Mifsud found Khaled Eddali, an asylum seeker who had been arrested on the roof of a Floriana residence last September, guilty of attempted theft, aggravated by means and relapsing, jailing him for eight months.

In its sentence, the court however took the opportunity to express its horror at the level of racism and intolerance towards the plight of refugees, published on online blogs.

The judgment comes hot on the heels of a libel judgment which upheld MaltaToday’s line against racist intolerance, describing far-right politician Norman Lowell’s behaviour and comments as “not in any way acceptable in a democratic society, where diversity and multiculturalism form the foundations of Maltese society, as shown by the very language we speak”.

The magistrate dedicated several paragraphs of the judgment to the challenges caused by immigration. Quoting Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate, magistrate Mifsud insisted that “every migrant is a person, imbued with unalienable fundamental human rights which must be respected by all and in every circumstance.”

With this in mind, the court said it was shocked by comments about the subject written in blogs: “The level of racism, intolerance and animosity towards these persons....is frightening and leads the court to ask what had become of the values of hospitality and compassion to the afflicted, upon which the country was built.”

With respect to the crime at issue, the court found the accused guilty of all charges, bar the aggravating factor of value.

Magistrate Mifsud noted that the law as it stands, allowed habitual criminals to avoid harsher punishments for relapsing by simply failing to pay any fines imposed or evade incarceration, appealing to the legislator to “address the anomaly which rewards those who ignore court sentences.”