Six St Vincent De Paul staff members to be charged with Carmelo Fino’s disappearance and death

The police have issued charges against at least six people over the death of 83-year-old St Vincent De Paul resident Carmelo Fino last year. 

Sources who spoke to this newspaper said charges have been issued against several staff members working at the elderly home. MaltaToday is informed that security personnel and nurses are among those being charged over the case. 

Charges include involuntary homicide and neglect. The case is expected to be heard in front of Magistrate Marse-Ann Farrugia early next year.  

An independent inquiry into the elderly man's disappearance from a government residence home found significant shortcomings on the part of staff working the night shift as well as the security team assigned with the main gate on the night of the disappearance. 

The inquiry, led by retired Judge Geoffrey Valenzia, found several shortcomings that led to Fino’s disappearance. A summarised version of the inquiry reads that the night shift at the ward did not carry out their duty with diligence by failing to monitor those in their care.  

Fino was discovered to be missing at 8am on 28 June after staff working the day shift went to bathe Fino but could not find him. They informed the management, who then contacted the night shift workers. 

These workers said they saw Fino in his ward at 5:45am. However, a patient who shared the same ward as Fino said the man was not in his ward at 3am. This was corroborated by CCTV footage which showed Fino walking by Lidl supermarket in Luqa at 3:17am. 

“Besides owing to their [night shift] negligence in properly reporting the disappearance of Mr Fino they consequently misled all those who were involved in the search with precious time being lost allowing Mr Fino to wander far from the facility,” the report found.  

Among those charged will be social assistance worker Robert Belli, one of the employees suspended after the incident. 

He had described the internal inquiry as being “very superficial”. 

Belli had submitted a written reply on 3 August 2022, in which he rejected any insinuation that he was to blame and contested his precautionary suspension. 

Belli complained that then St Vincent De Paul CEO Josianne Cutajar had failed to justify the alleged urgency of the social assistance worker’s suspension. 

Another person who had been suspended and later reinstated was nurse Rhys Xuereb. The MUMN had said at the time Xuereb was made a scapegoat for system failures and inadequate staffing levels.