Nicholas Azzopardi’s death: questions that will not go away

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi refused on Monday evening in parliament to publish the report of an internal police inquiry into the death of Nicholas Azzopardi who ended up at the bottom of the ditch behind Police Headquarters while in police custody on 9 April 2008. He died 13 days later.

Prime Minister Gonzi who has taken over the Home Affairs portfolio since the resignation of Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici said that the information in the report is sensitive and he does not think he should publish it "in the interests of the innocent person".

He did not say who he is referring to. But his reply also shows that for at least 13 days the Police did not hold any internal inquiry into the Azzopardi incident. The prime minister said that the inquiry was held only after allegations were made that Azzopardi was set upon and beaten at Police HQ and then thrown over a wall.

In parliament I asked the prime minister whether the police had held an internal inquiry and if so to publish the report.

The prime minister asked for more time to compile the information requested by me in another parliamentary question where I asked for details about the number of persons who "fell" from the three-storey-high bastion at the back of the Police Headquarters known as "tal-klandestini" because irregular migrants used to be held there for a period of two years.

I asked the prime minister to say how many persons in police custody in the last 10 years fell off the bastions behind Police HQ? How many of them were foreigners and how many of them were Maltese? What happened to them after they "fell"? How many of them died? How many of them were injured and how many of them were left unscathed after the "fall"?

Were investigations held by police to find out what really happened? I hope that I get a satisfactory answer to all these questions before parliament goes into its summer recess.

In April 2008 Nicholas Azzopardi "fell" from the same spot while he was in police custody. Testifying in an inquiry held by Judge Albert Manche on the Azzopardi case, several police officers said that a number of persons, especially irregular migrants, had "fallen" off the same bastion trying to escape.

There used to be an opening in the bastion giving the impression that one could use it to run away. Police sources say it is not the first time that irregular migrants ran down that opening and fell into the ditch below. In recent years the opening has been barred. Since then irregular migrants have been moved to the Safi Detention Centre.

Reading carefully the Manche' inquiry into the death of Nicholas Azzopardi it is clear that it was compiled with a dominant narrative in mind: Azzopardi was a paedophile. After he was informed that he would be charged with sexually abusing his seven-year-old daughter, he was too ashamed to face his family and society and when he was taken behind Police HQ he grabbed the opportunity to jump into the ditch below to commit suicide. The police tried to save him but he was too heavy and fell into the ditch below. Even the way the two police officers describe his fall shows that it was not of a man trying to commit suicide. Was he a man trying to escape and get away? But to where? He knew that he would be caught and would have to face the consequences.

Facts that dispute the narrative casting Azzopardi as the guilty offender have been conveniently discarded. Azzopardi's in-laws reported him to Appogg and the police about the sexual abuse of his daughter only after he was given custody of the children. Before then they never uttered a word about it and they had every opportunity to do so in court that decided that he should get custody of the children. Was Azzopardi beaten at Police HQ? Was he thrown over a wall? He was taken behind Police HQ and the dramatic moment of his "fall" is in a blind spot and has not been captured by any CCTVs. There are serious questions about what happened off the cameras behind Police HQ just before and after Azzopardi's "fall" that have yet to be answered.

The author is shadow minister for education