Azzopardi says prisoners and relatives were promised 'broad amnesty' if Labour won elections.

Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi and whip David Agius are insisting that the 100-day amnesty granted to inmates at the Corradino prisons was an "unpublished" electoral promise.

According to Azzopardi, a number of MPs and Labour candidates who today form part of the Prime Minister's Cabinet promised inmates and their relatives that a broad amnesty would be granted if the PL was elected to government.

"Relatives were told the amnesty would be as wide as possible to reach more convicts. There were also Labour MPs who visited the prisons during the campaign who promised an amensty," Azzopardi said.

He added the PN would be further substantiating this claim in the following weeks.

Addressing a press conference outside Corradino Correctional Facility, the Opposition spokesman for home affairs said an amnesty shouldn't be granted because of a change in government. 

"The last amnesties tied with a general election were in 1987 by the PN government and in 1996 by Labour. Since then, society has evolved to recognise we should protect and respect victims of crimes. How are we protecting them if the perpetrators have now walked free?" Azzopardi said.

"This unpublished electoral promise takes us back 20 years... A shameful act for the personal gratification of the Minister for Home Affairs who was cheered by the inmates for his decision. It is demeaning for the role he serves."

He said that while the PN was not against amnesties, it opposed them being granted for political reasons.

"An amnesty should be granted when something rare happens. I did ask whether an amnesty would be granted when the Archbishop was appointed. But the installment of an archbishop happens three or four times in a century."

The implications of the amnesty are wide-ranging, he said, affecting the rehabilitation of convicts undergoing drug rehabilitation programmes.

"There were three inmates who were following these programmes. They have now walked free and have no obligation to finalise it. How has this helped their rehabilitation? Are society and the individual better off now?" he said, adding that by the end of the year, six other convicts undergoing the programme will walk out without having finished.

Azzopardi suggested the amnesty was granted to address overcrowding issues at the prisons. He argued that a total of 143 convicts will benefit from the amnesty, emptying two divisions.

He said inmates serving sentence at the prisons amounted to approximately 480. He calculated there were not more than 42 who were jailed for sexual offenses and human trafficking. These inmates did not benefit from the amnesty.