Nicholas Azzopardi’s legacy

As yet, we still do not know precisely what form this latest inquiry will take; nor whether the terms of reference will extend beyond determining what actually happened, to also cover other relevant considerations... for instance, the precise responsibility of the Police Force in similar cases.

In fact, the entire episode has opened a can of worms that goes far, far beyond the precise circumstances of Nicholas Azzopardi's mysterious death. It has also cast an uncomfortable spotlight on a number of other serious issues: among them, the very definition of the word 'custody', and what it means to assume responsibility for people entrusted into one's care.

It seems strange to have to even point this out, but from the moment Nicholas Azzopardi crossed the threshold of the Floriana depot in 2008, his safety (not to mention his life) instantly became the sole and direct responsibility of the police force, and no one else.

This is true of all people in the same situation: which is why no serious country will ever tolerate a situation whereby mysterious deaths in custody are not thoroughly and publicly investigated.

And yet, when Azzopardi first sustained the injuries that would eventually kill him, the police not only failed to publicly acknowledge what had happened... but at the time, all official communications about the incident were limited only to the detail (dubious, at best) that Azzopardi had 'tried to escape'.

It fell to the family of the deceased to publicly disclose the undeniable fact that Azzopardi had been badly injured at a time (and in a place) where the police were morally, legally and technically obliged to prevent precisely that eventuality from occurring.

Even when Azzopardi succumbed to his injuries on 23 April, the police did not immediately issue any press release to inform the media of this event. Again, it had to be the family, via this newspaper, to step in and compensate for this omission.

Looking back, it seems simply unbelievable that it had to take a full-blown family press conference - airing video footage of a man claiming to have been savagely beaten by the police - to finally prompt official inquiries into a death in police custody.

This is something that should really have happened straight away, as a matter of routine procedure.

In a serious country, one would also have expected the police to hold this press conference themselves - as well as to insist on the inquiry straight away, rather than wait three years for yet more evidence to emerge that the main witness was all along unreliable (to say the least).

After all, the Police Commissioner has on various occasions taken the initiative to organise press conferences in the past... but only, it seems, when the aim was to publicly defend his Police Force from criticism.

At this point it is worth reminding both Police Commissioner John Rizzo and Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici that, in the case of Nicholas Azzopardi, their combined failure to take the necessary action when confronted with such a serious matter, stands in stark contrast to the gravity with which analogous cases are treated elsewhere.

And with very good reason, too: for if a country's administrative and political authorities can be so disdainful of their responsibilities towards one particular case... why should anyone expect them to behave differently in other cases? And who is to guarantee the health and safety of all other persons taken into police custody in future... if not the police themselves, and the ministry responsible for the police?

This in turn raises yet another question that has so far eluded any clear answer. From the two investigations concluded to date, it seems that there is no 'standard procedure' in place to govern such official inquiries. Astonishingly, the accepted practice is for the home affairs minister to simply appoint a magistrate or judge, and draw up the terms of reference himself.

Is it possible that no one has ever discerned a potential conflict of interest here? Surely, the minister politically responsible for the police's actions has a vested interest in ensuring that the police are never publicly shamed by means of a conclusive inquiry report. So how cam he also be the one to order the inquiry?

In this case, the anomaly is more bizarre still: for at the time of the incident, the minister in question - i.e., Minister Mifsud Bonnici - was still politically responsible for both the police AND the judiciary (a situation that was rectified, with much consequence, last January).

Incredibly, then, the same person who appoints judges and magistrates in the first place, also gets to choose which of his earlier appointees should investigate a mysterious death... in which the 'suspect' (so to speak) happens to be another department which falls under his own portfolio.

Clearly this is not a tenable or serious situation, and one can only sympathise with Joe Azzopardi - Nicholas' father - when he demands an 'independent inquiry, or none at all'.