Prison warders, convicted in 2013 of battering inmate, return to work

Four ex-prison warders who had been jailed in 2013 for the savage beating of Perry Ingomar Toornstra, after he tried to escape from prison, have returned to unknown posts within the prison service.

Former prisons chief Abraham Zammit sued MaltaToday for criminal libel after reporting claims by Dutch inmate Perry Toornstra over the conditions inside Corradino Correctional Facility. (Photo of Toornstra by John Pisani)
Former prisons chief Abraham Zammit sued MaltaToday for criminal libel after reporting claims by Dutch inmate Perry Toornstra over the conditions inside Corradino Correctional Facility. (Photo of Toornstra by John Pisani)

Four ex-prison warders who had been jailed in 2013 for the savage beating of a Dutch inmate who had tried to escape from prison have returned to unknown posts within the prison service.

Perry Ingomar Toornstra, who is serving a 15-year jail term for drug trafficking - to which a further nine months were added for the escape attempt - had suffered a broken arm and broken ribs in a beating at the hands of the four accused men in 2008. The beating was captured on CCTV and the injuries confirmed by medical experts.

Warders Francis Debono and Francis Meli were subsequently sentenced to five years and three months in jail, while their colleagues Daniel Cuschieri and George Falzon had been sentenced five years imprisonment for the beating.

Last February, the Court of Appeal reduced the men's punishment to six months in prison, suspended for two years.

Two months ago, MaltaToday editor Matthew Vella and journalist Raphael Vassallo were acquitted of criminal libel in a case filed by the former prisons chief Abraham Zammit and three of the prison warders over an a 2011 article reporting Perry Ingomar Toornstra's claims that he had been mercilessly beaten by the prison warders and the injuries he sustained after the failed escape bid.

MaltaToday had published claims made by Toornstra of the deleterious conditions in Corradino Correctional Facility that inmates were enduring, and of the injuries he sustained by the wardens who attacked him, in a letter the inmate had sent to then home affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici.

Toornstra had claimed that warders Raymond Theuma, Carmelo Bonnici and James Abela had witnessed the attack on him and suggested that they had lied under oath in court to cover up for their colleagues.

In a reaction published elsewhere this morning, a Home Affairs Ministry spokesperson is reported to have said that as a result of the appeal the four men's suspensions had been lifted and they had been re-employed at the correctional facility. Their half-salary, which had been withheld during their suspension, was forfeited, the ministry said.

The ministry told MaltaToday that the men were "public officers whose employment is regulated by the Public Service Commission. The Ministry for Home Affairs and National Security, as well as the CCF Management, have to follow decisions taken by the Public Services Commission regarding disciplinary proceedings involving public officers. The persons in question are Correctional Officers and they are assigned duties compatible with their grade according to the exigencies of service.”