PN calls for answers over ‘attempted suicide’ at police headquarters

The Nationalist Party has demanded answers over reports that a prisoner attempted to commit suicide while locked up at the police headquarters last week.

Following media leakages, the police confirmed that an internal investigation has been launched into how a Syrian prisoner “managed to inflict an abrasion on his forearm”. The prisoner has since been transferred to Mount Carmel Hospital as a precautionary measure.

PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami questioned why the government had kept this attempted suicide secret, and why home affairs minister Carmelo Abela did not refer to it at all during a recent parliamentary debate following the suicide of a prisoner at Mount Carmel’s forensic ward.

The Englishman was the third prisoner to have committed suicide in the past three months.   

“Why was an internal investigation only launched after the information was leaked to the press and not before?” Fenech Adami questioned. “Why has Abela repeatedly refused to hold a public inquiry to establish the exact cause behind this wave of tragedies.

“The people who keep things secret are those who have something to hide. It is clear that Abela has lost all control over police operations, and that his incompetence has led to a crisis within the police force.”