Carmelo Abela wants to meet NGOs over Kamara report

New Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela has vowed to meet NGOs to discuss migration issues and detention policy as early as next Tuesday, after the government released for the first time ever a report by judge Geoffrey Valenzia into the death of Malian migrant Mamadou Kamara in 2012.

In comments to MaltaToday, the new minister – who succeeds Manuel Mallia – said he was raring to meet NGOs who on Friday expressed their disgust at the way the Valenzia report had been gathering dust with no visible action being taken on it.

“I want to meet the NGOs altogether. I’d be happy to meet them at the ministry and listen to them. It’s my first week so I am in listening mode and want to seek constant dialogue with them.

“We will be following up on the Valenza report, but I need more time to consult with ministry officials. I have my own views on migration, which is why I want to speak to NGOs about more than just detention.”

A government spokesperson also told MaltaToday that with the average time of the asylum determination process having gone down to as much as three months, and the role of Italy’s Mare Nostrum operation in easing the migration burden, the Hal Far detention centre was now being refurbished. “Having appointed more than one refugee appeals board gave us the time to clear more asylum decisions and their appeals,” the spokesperson said

The NGOs aditus Foundation, Integra Foundation, Jesuit Refugee Service (Malta), KOPIN, Malta Emigrants’ Commission, Migrants’ Network for Equality, Organisation for Friendship in Diversity, and SOS Malta, said that the Valenzia Report into the death of Mamadou Kamara was “a scathing commentary on the way Malta has freely decided to treat men, women and children who are running for their lives.”

They also said that the change in administration in 2013 brought a review process on detention and any dialogue with civil society to a halt. “Despite our repeated calls to be invited to discuss Malta’s detention regime, the process was wholly ignored, its findings shelved and our concerns disregarded. We hope that the publication of this report is made with the intention of implementing its comprehensive and insightful recommendations.”

They describe the Valenzia report as one of the most constructive and thorough reports to date, joining so many other reports in “unequivocally condemning a policy that seeks to deprive migrants of their very humanity by locking them away out of sight, out of scrutiny and out of human rights protection.”

“Yet we are not shocked,” the NGOs said. “We are not shocked to read of sexual relations between a small number of Detention Services personnel and detained women. We are not shocked because we have been witnessing such incidents for several years. We stress that the majority of Detention Services personnel do their utmost in what is in fact a very difficult working environment, as also underlined by the Report.”

They said they were appalled at the fact that the report had been gathering dust since December 2012 while the violations remained unchallenged, and its recommendations unheeded – a key accusation made by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who tabled the report in parliament, after it was revealed that former home affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici did not heed former Detention Services head Lt Col Brian Gatt’s call to discipline DS officers.

Gatt told Valenzia that the DSU was staffed by “the worst of the worst… soldiers refused by the army,” adding that soldiers were assigned to work at Detention Services as a sort of punishment.

“I had a sergeant in Hal Far who 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.”

This sergeant was never suspended but simply transferred to another section. Four years later he was returned to the DS.

Mamadou Kamara, the inquiry revealed, died from a heart attack caused by severe pain as a result of blunt trauma: according to forensic expert Mario Scerri, Kamara was kicked in the groin.

He had been living illegally in Malta and was shopped to the authorities while seeking treatment at the Floriana polyclinic. When he escaped his captors and later recaptured, he was placed in a steel cage at the back of a detention centre van where he was brutally beaten, suffered a heart attack and died.