Prison inmate on hunger strike over delays in justice system

A man currently serving an 18-year prison sentence for conspiracy to drug trafficking has been on hunger strike since Wednesday, in protest against excessive delays in his ongoing appeal.

Director of prisons Abraham Zammit confirmed yesterday that José Edgar Pena, a Canadian national of South American extraction, is currently on the fourth day of a hunger strike in his cell at Corradino Correctional Facility (CCF).

He is under observation by the CCF's medical staff and his condition is understood to be stable; but family members who contacted this newspaper on Thursday have expressed concerns that his life may be at risk.

A spokesman for prisoners' rights organization Mid-Dlam Ghad-Dawl (MDD) separately confirmed that Pena - who spent four years in preventive custody awaiting trial, and is currently awaiting a date for his appeal hearing following several deferrals - has been suffering from a severe depression for some time.

"Inmate Pena first refused food provided by the CCF on Wednesday evening," prison director Zammit said yesterday. "He is being monitored daily by the CCF's doctors on duty and is reportedly in good health. He is therefore still in his allocated cell and division."

Zammit added that he spoke to Pena the day after the commencement of the hunger strike, "during which exchange he declared that his issue was exclusively related to the period of time that the court is taking to deliver the judgement in the appeal of his case".

The prison authorities have since established that the case in question has been deferred for sentencing twice; and that the next court sitting has yet to be communicated.

Jose Edgar Pena is in fact one of a number of Corradino inmates, nearly all foreign, to have complained about excessive delays in Malta's justice system. He has been in prison since September 2006, when he was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to import drugs to Malta.

In a letter to President of the Republic Dr George Abela (copied to this newspaper), he claims to have been the victim of a misunderstanding.

"In August 4 of 2006 I came over to Malta for a holyday [sic]," Pena wrote. "During those days I received some telephone calls from a friend in Mexico regarding a car business, after that, he told me about one of his friend who was coming to Malta to attend an English course and needed help in accommodation..."

The 'friend' in question was arrested upon arrival at the airport with one and a half kilogrammes of cocaine. Pena insists he had no connection with the case; but what sparked his decision to go on permanent hunger strike this week was not so much the guilty verdict - which his family feels confident will be overturned on appeal - but rather, the extraordinary length it has taken for his case to be heard in court.

From the moment of his arrest until his conviction by jury in 2010, Pena spent four years awaiting trial in Corradino prison. He was eventually found guilty by six votes to three, and sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment and a fine of €20,000.

He originally filed his appeal in November 2010... but he is still awaiting a sentencing date, after his case was deferred on several occasions without any reasons supplied by the court.

As a consequence, Pena's letter to the President now reads like a bewildering series of dates with no end in sight: "On 7 July of 2011, it was the first hearing of the appeal and by the urgency of the case the second one was on 12 July of 2011, the day in which the honourable judge gave the date for the sentence on 15 September of 2011, on that date I receive the new appointment for 27 October, the court emitted new documents and the date was postponed to 12 January 2012, again this was postponed to 19 April 2012, in regard to this bad situation on 30 January, I applied for a hearing to ask an early date to hear the sentence, I was summoned to the court on 16 February 2012, the honourable judge said that he will resolve it later, to my surprising, on 11 of April 2012, I received the answer ignoring what I applied for... [sic]"

On 12 April, Pena received a letter from court informing him that his appointment of 19 April had been postponed to 23 April... "but on 26 April I again received a communication from court informing that the new date was on 16 May. This date passed without any event. Today, four month later I don't have any communication from the honourable court, this kind of attitude could be interpreted as if the justice, the life of an innocent man and his family doesn't have any significance [sic]..."

Earlier this month, Abraham Zammit confirmed that there are currently 89 out of 216 foreign inmates still awaiting trial.

Lawyer Joe Giglio told this newspaper that "the Criminal Code obliges the courts to grant defendants bail when the compilation of evidence takes too long to be concluded, especially in the case where offenders were placed in preventive custody for 12 months in a case of a crime liable to the punishment of imprisonment of less than four years".

Pre-trial detention time-frames stipulated by law are 12 months in the case of a crime liable to the punishment of imprisonment of less than four years; 16 months in the case of a crime liable to the punishment of imprisonment of four years or more but less than nine years, and 20 months in the case of a crime liable to the punishment of imprisonment of nine years or more.

However, Pena waited four years - i.e, more than four times longer than the maximum period stipulated at law - in prison for his trial to commence.