Investigation into Ħal Far detainee death still ongoing two years on

The death of a Sudanese teen at the Ħal Far detention centre in 2020 is still under magisterial and police investigation, according to information received by MaltaToday.

Nebil Abdula, who was 17 or 19 at the time, died at the Ħal Far detention sector on 2 September 2020, with a government statement released on the say saying Abdula had falled off a fence while trying to escape the closed Lyster Barracks at 5am.

Abdula was given medical assistance by nurses at the centre but was then taken to Mater Dei Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at around 11:15am.

He suffered internal bleeding after sustaining injuries to his abdomen, eventually resulting in his death. Abdula had been positive for COVID-19 at the time of death.

Two years on, police investigations and a magisterial inquiry are still ongoing, a spokesperson told this newspaper.

Abdula was one of 20 detained migrants who attempted an escape from the Lyster Barracks’ Hermes block the day of his death, by dismantling an outer wall on the second floor and climbing up a three-storey high wire fence.

Footage of the film captured by a Detention Services Unit member, and seen by a Council of Europe delegation, showed two migrants falling from the fence.

Abdula was seen falling from the fence in this footage, landing on his side. After the fall, he got up and walked back to his accommodation block.

While the incident happened at around 5:30am, it was not until around three hours later at 8:15am that Abdula was seen by a nurse, despite repeated calls for help. He was declared dead soon after arriving at the hospital, and a magisterial inquiry was opened into the incident.

The Council of Europe delegation said that it “cannot reassure itself that staff, including healthcare staff, had reacted sufficiently promptly when crucial help was needed to save this young man’s life from the effects of suspected internal bleeding over a period of at least three hours.”

The Council of Europe has requested a copy of the full death certificate and Magistrate’s report to be submitted to the Attorney General.

In 2020, the year of the COVID-19 pandemic, several escape attempts were made at the Hermes Block, with a group of 21 detainees in June 2020 damaging a wall during one such attempt, and another five escaping in a separate attempt that month.

In another attempted escape on 18 September 2020, a private security guard shot the escaping migrants using a personal shotgun.

The security guard, Darren Bonello, was charged with attempted murder and pleaded not guilty.

The 27 people who tried escaping the centre were also remanded in custody and charged with participating in a riot.

A number of migrants managed to escape but were later recaptured.

Some migrants alleged with the Council of Europe delegation that members of staff at the Ħal Far detention centre shook the fence while the migrants were climbing up, causing them to fall to the ground. They also alleged that staff members beat them up with batons during escape attempts on 23 August and 2 September 2020.

“One of them suffered a fracture of the scaphoid bone in his right hand and had also sustained a laceration on his head. He spent four days in Mater Dei Hospital being treated for his injuries,” the report says.

The delegation said it also received four separate allegations of unwarranted pepper spray use by guards in the detention centre.

“For example, one incident involved a migrant being allegedly pepper sprayed by a Detention Service guard for looking out through the corridor’s window bars and refusing to go back into his dormitory.”

Such incidents were alleged to have happened between March and June 2020.