Appeals court confirms damages for inmate’s death

An appeals court has confirmed a 2010 sentence that found the prisons’ director and home affairs minister responsible for the death of prisoner Carlos Chetcuti.

The Court of Appeal has reduced the €53,497 compensation awarded to Chetucti’s father to €38,213 as an estimate of the remaining life-years Chetcuti, a drug addict, could have expected to live.

Chetcuti died in February 1995 as a result of a methadone overdose. The first court assessed that he could have lived a further 35 years, but the appeals court reduced it to 25 to come to the sum of damages to be paid to Vincent Chetcuti.

Chetcuti claimed his son died in mysterious circumstances at Corradino Correctional Facility, and due to negligence.

Vincent Chetcuti died in the course of the court proceedings, and his place in the litigation was taken over by another relative, Jane Agius.

Chetcuti’s treatment had been administered by Susan Galea, who was assistant to prisons psychiatrist John Mifsud. He later died of pulmonary oedema, which was compatible with fatal methadone poisoning, when he was administered a dose of 40cc methadone instead of 20cc.

The court concurred with the findings of the first court that no system for the administration of care to drug dependent inmates existed in the prisons, and that the prison system for drug-dependent inmates was without rigid guidelines.