Violent assault on Dutch prisoner: Warders’ reinstatement was PSC’s decision, home affairs minister says

The return to undisclosed duties of four prison warders who had been jailed in 2013 for a brutal assault on Dutch prisoner Per Ingomar Toornstra was taken by the Public Service Commission

Two of the warders were sentenced to five years and three months in jail, while their colleagues were sentenced to five years imprisonment for the beating
Two of the warders were sentenced to five years and three months in jail, while their colleagues were sentenced to five years imprisonment for the beating

The return to undisclosed duties of four prison warders who had been jailed in 2013 for a brutal assault on Dutch inmate Perry Ingomar Toornstra was taken by the Public Service Commission, to which authority in disciplinary matters is delegated, and not to the Ministry for Home Affairs and National Security.

Toornstra had suffered a broken arm and broken ribs in a beating at the hands of four prison warders in August 2008 while he was being escorted to Corradino Correctional Facility at the end of a period of prison leave. Toornstra was serving a 15-year jail term for drug trafficking – to which a further nine months were added for an escape bid.

The un-handcuffed Dutchman had managed to escape from a police car in Paola, having reached through his passenger window, which had been open because the car was not equipped with air conditioning, and opened the door from the outside.

His subsequent beating was captured on CCTV.

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 to five years imprisonment for the beating.

In its decision in the case against the warders, the court of first instance, presided by Magistrate Marseann Farrugia, had ruled that the warders had acted “overzealously” while arresting Toornstra.

Perry Ingomar Toornstra, seen here in a social media photo he uploaded, is no longer incarcerated
Perry Ingomar Toornstra, seen here in a social media photo he uploaded, is no longer incarcerated

In a separate case, filed in 2010, the Dutchman had been charged with attacking the prison warders, only to be acquitted, with the presiding magistrate ruling that the warders’ account of events was not credible.

The warders had filed an appeal 10 days after their sentence was handed down in December 2013. Lawyers for the men argued that forensic pathologist Mario Scerri had disregarded the warders’ version of events in his report, which described the injuries as being compatible with a beating and not violent resistance to arrest.

The expert’s report had not been impartial and was only based on a superficial examination of the injuries. The conclusions drawn by the expert were outside his remit, it was argued.

Last February, the Court of Appeal, presided by Mr Justice Antonio Mizzi, had upheld the defence’s arguments. It held that the men’s treatment of Toornstra could not be construed as torture and their allowing of Toornstra to open the rear window of the police car, could not be considered a “grievous imprudence”. The court reduced the warders’ sentence from five years and three months in jail to six months in prison, suspended for two years.

Last week, it was reported that the men had resumed employment, the ministry explaining that as a result of the appeal the four men’s suspensions had been lifted and had been re-employed at the correctional facility.

Their half-salary, which had been withheld during their suspension, was forfeited, the ministry had said.

Replying to questions sent by MaltaToday earlier this week, the Ministry for Home Affairs and National Security pointed out 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 Public Service Commission (Disciplinary Procedure) Regulations, 1999 delegates disciplinary powers to Heads of Department, a measure intended to expedite the disciplinary process and reinforce accountability.

The ministry was coy in reply to questions about what duties the men would be carrying out, in light of their past actions. “The persons in question are Correctional Officers and they are assigned duties compatible with their grade according to the exigencies of service,” was the official reply.

Prisons chief’s libel case against MaltaToday dismissed

In June this year, 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 a 2011 article reporting Perry Ingomar Toornstra’s claims of being beaten by the prison warders and the injuries he sustained after his unsuccessful escape attempt.

Magistrate Francesco Depasquale, in acquitting the two MaltaToday journalists, said that as a public servant, Zammit was “subject to wider limits of acceptable criticism than a private individual” and that the article concerns the actions of his role as a prisons chief.

MaltaToday had published a letter the inmate had sent to then home affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici outlining his injury claims and complaining about the conditions at Corradino Correctional Facility. In the letter, 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.