Man in jail for four murders could be released on parole following Constitutional Court decision

A man who has spent the past 25 years behind bars for brutally murdering four men in 1988, could be released on parole if a Parole Board deems him to have been sufficiently rehabilitated, a court has ruled.

Tunisian Ben Ali Wahid Ben Hassine had been condemned to life imprisonment in February 1992 for the quadruple murder of two taxi drivers and two men, one British and the other French, in an 18-day killing spree that shocked the island. The criminal court had recommended that Ben Hassine serve a minimum of 22 years behind bars.

Ben Ali Wahid Ben Hassine had instilled terror in the Maltese Islands in February 1988, when he carried out four callous and brutal murder-robberies over an 18-day period. The murders were so gruesome that some people were unwilling to leave their homes at the time.

Hassine’s murders were particularly gruesome. His third victim was shot in the head and had his face caved in with a rock in an attempt to prevent the victim from being recognised, this after Hassine had failed at decapitating the body. The fourth and final victim was also a taxi driver who was killed by a gunshot to the head.

The murder investigation had led to the arrest of a number of Tunisian men, amongst them Mohsen Mosbah Bin Brahim and Ben Ali Wahid Ben Hassine. Both men were 26 years old at the time. The two Tunisians were both handed life sentences in 1992, after pleading guilty to avoid a trial by Jury.

Ben Ali Wahid Ben Hassine, had filed a human rights action in October 2014 arguing that because life sentences were not subject to revision in Malta, his fundamental human rights had been breached.

In a judgment delivered last November, a court of appeal had given the legislator four months in which to provide a mechanism by which a life-sentence could be revised or reduced. Making reference to EU case-law, the court had declared that the absence of such a mechanism constituted a violation of the right to protection against inhuman treatment under article 36 of the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.

After those four months lapsed and with no remedy in sight, Ben Hassine had filed another application to the Court of Appeal, stating that no remedy had yet been provided by Parliament.

The Attorney General had argued that amendments to the Reparative Justice Act were still being discussed in Parliament and that the legislative process had to be allowed to run its course.

In its decision on Friday 28th April, the Constitutional Court, presided by Chief Justice Silvio Camilleri and by judges Giannino Caruana Demajo and Noel Cuschieri, noted that the proposed amendments did not satisfy the criteria for the revision or reduction of life sentences envisage any possible reduction of life-sentences, but rather provided for the introduction of parole in such cases. Parole, said the court, means “release from prison under certain established conditions,” but the issue which should have been addressed by the Reparative Justice Act was whether or not a reduction in punishment should apply – something that the Parole Board will not have the power to do, even if the amendments enter into law.

Therefore, in view of the fact that the plaintiff had already served 25 years in prison for his life sentence, the court “with the aim that the violation of Article 36 of the Constitution and Article 3 of the European Convention, orders that within a month from today, the plaintiff appear before the Parole Board.”