The worst of the worst

This week has ushered in a plethora of revelations about the state of our nation’s institutions, and the resulting picture is not very reassuring. 

On Monday, the results of the independent inquiry into the shooting incident, involving former minister Manuel Mallia’s personal driver, were made public. What emerged was a picture of negligence and administrative dilettantism at various levels of the police force, resulting in the resignation of Acting Commissioner Ray Zammit, as well as (indirectly) Mallia’s removal from office.

Within days, a government in retaliation mode published the results of an earlier inquiry concluded in 2012, but which had been kept under wraps ever since. If the Sheehan inquiry findings were disturbing, the contents of this report were shocking and disgraceful. An inquiry into the death of Mamadou Kamara, 32 from Mali, revealed that he had been beaten to death in the Hal Safi detention centre. It also lifted the lid on many of the systemic problems within Malta’s detention regime at the time, including what appears to be sexual abuse of vulnerable female detainees by members of the Armed Forces.

Former DS commander Lt Col Brian Gatt testified that “a sergeant in Hal Far… used to prey on migrant women, entering their rooms during the night and taking a woman back to his office with him. Even condoms were found in the room.” The report suggests that more than one member of staff may have been party to the same behaviour: “[there was] a kind of inappropriate relationship going on between some members of staff and migrant women being detained. It could have been consensual but given the context, you question this consent… how real it is… because they are detained and there is a soldier-detainee relationship which renders the relationship inappropriate”.

Elsewhere, symptoms of the same administrative malaise uncovered by the Sheehan report were likewise identified in detention centres. Gatt reported that being assigned to detention duty – a position that automatically comes with a high degree of professional responsibility – was treated as a ‘punishment’ by the Armed Forces. As a result, detention camps housing vulnerable migrants, including women, were manned by rejects from the army: described by Lt Col Gatt as “the worst of the worst”. 

Gatt revealed that one of the AFM personnel detailed to Hal Safi was facing criminal charges for “shooting at a yacht during training” – just a year after the first of two suspicious deaths in detention – while another had “usury problems”. 

All this reflects very poorly on the previous administration, on two counts. One, the report illustrates the abysmal level of seriousness with which the government took its responsibilities. Detaining large numbers of people is a risky, dangerous and controversial policy even without such cases of abuse. It is inconceivable that the same government which chose to employ this controversial policy, would be so negligent and amateurish in its execution.

The second reason concerns the fact that the inquiry report was kept secret. This is deeply disturbing, given that it contains clear evidence of very serious crimes, including homicide. Moreover, the Nationalist Party has spent the better part of the past two weeks loudly insisting on the ‘whole truth’ coming out of the Sheehan affair. We now know that the same party, when in government, hid the truth on a much more serious issue. Clearly, the PN is in no position to preach in favour of accountability and a culture of transparency, still less about ‘moral authority’.

But here we must also question the timing of the present government in releasing this report precisely now. The government has had 18 months to digest its contents; yet chose not to publish the report until such time as its publication would help settle a political score with the PN. As a result, crimes of a serious nature have not only gone unpunished, but have not even been investigated. It is regrettable to have to conclude that the total disregard for the seriousness of these crimes by both parties can only be attributed to the colour of the victims’ skin.

Equally distasteful is the undisguised way in which both parties now avail themselves of the instruments of the state – including judicial and magisterial inquiries into criminal activity – only on the basis of what political advantage can be gleaned from their publication for themselves. This is utterly unacceptable. The instruments of justice are not the private property of political parties, and do not exist merely to furnish them with opportunities to score political points against each other. They serve the very serious purpose of reassuring the general public that the state is being properly administered; and as a result of both the Sheehan and the Valenzia inquiries, this very basic form of civic trust has now been shattered. 

Clearly, this is no way to administer a 21st century EU member state. The two parties must outgrow this childish war of attrition once and for all, and start living up to the ideals of accountability and transparency they so loudly proclaim when in opposition… only (as the Sheehan report so aptly reminded us) to promptly forget them the moment they come into power.

Otherwise, we really will be facing ‘the worst of the worst’.