Updated | PL demands Busuttil take action against Mifsud Bonnici

Former home affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici has reiterated that he never stopped Lieutenant Colonel Brian Gatt from taking disciplinary steps against officers involved in the death of an escaped asylum seeker in 2011.

In comments contradicting a 2012 inquiry, Mifsud Bonnici said he found it “strange” that Gatt - former head of the detention services - said he had stopped him from taking disciplinary steps against officers.

“I found this statement very strange because there is an official press release saying the inquiry’s recommendations should be adopted,” Mifsud Bonnici said.

On his part, Gatt preferred not to comment because he didn’t want to influence the ongoing court case.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat asked PN leader Simon Busuttil to face up to his “own leadership test” as one of his MPs may have directly stopped disciplinary proceedings against Detention Services officers.

“The PN leader must state what steps will he take against Mifsud Bonnici who in 2011 was politically responsible of the Detention Services. If Busuttil wants to be credible he must declare whether he agrees with the inquiry investigating Infeanyi Nworkoye’s death,” the Labour Party said in a statement.

The PL said the report was stowed away by the Nationalist government while Mifsud Bonnici prevented disciplinary proceedings against those responsible of the migrant’s death.

“Instead of saying that he is being bullied by the government every time there is a case against the Opposition, Busuttil must turn his words into action. Busuttil must publicly state what action will he take against Mifsud Bonnici,” the PL said.

Mifsud Bonnici however insisted that the Prime Minister was accusing him of a cover-up: “The point is that the Prime Minister has accused me of a cover-up and this is not the case. We ordered an inquiry, parts of it were published and said recommendations should be adopted. If we wanted to hide the inquiry we would have never published the recommendations.”

The 2011 inquiry was never published in its entirety; the 2012 inquiry took place when the Armed Forces of Malta were transferred to the Office of the Prime Minister.

Infeanyi Nwokoye, a 29-year-old Nigerian detainee died shortly after a failed attempt to escape from the Safi detention centre. On 17 April 2011, then minister for home affairs, Mifsud Bonnici asked a board of inquiry to examine the operations of the Detention Services.

The inquiry, headed by former defence adviser Martin Scicluna, presented its conclusions on 26 August 2011 and a statement by the ministry was issued on 13 October 2011.

The inquiry found that there were grounds for disciplinary action to be taken against a number of detention officers. It however could not fully conclude its investigations until it had access to the autopsy result of the deceased. This result was to be released once the magisterial inquiry conducted by Antonio Micallef Trigona was to be concluded.

Fifteen months after Nwokoye’s death, Malian asylum seeker Mamadou Kamara died at the hands of detention services officers. A post-mortem found that Kamara died of a heart attack after he was brutally kicked in his genitals.

An inquiry into this second death was conducted by retired judge Geoffrey Valencia in 2012, findings of which were only tabled yesterday by the Prime Minister.

According to this inquiry, Gatt – then head of the detention services – said he had wanted to sack officers involved in the 2011 death but Mifsud Bonnici had stopped him from doing so.

“[Gatt] said he wasn’t in a position to take disciplinary steps. He recommended that disciplinary steps be taken but he was advised to first wait for the outcome of the magisterial inquiry. It had resulted to him that the negligence had been of the non-commissioned officers. He asked them to make a statement but they refused. He wanted to fire them since they refused to cooperate. Since the police were still investigating, the minister had issued a directive saying that things should remain as they are,” Valencia wrote in his report.

In comments to MaltaToday, Mifsud Bonnici said he found this statement “strange”.

“We had issued a press release in which we published the findings recommending disciplinary steps. We had passed on the [Scicluna] report to Gatt and the Brigadier so that they could take the necessary action,” Mifsud Bonnici said.

According to PR 1949, the press release Mifsud Bonnici referred to, the ministry for home affairs “immediately took steps” so that the points raised by the inquiry are addressed.

“The head of the detention services and the head of the Armed Forces of Malta were asked to consider the recommendations,” PR 1949 read. “The relevant authorities are considering in detail the comments of the board so that, where is necessary, disciplinary steps are taken as soon as possible without compromising ulterior procedures that might result from the magisterial inquiry.”

In October 2011, a month after the press release was issued, the Times of Malta reported that the government had refused to elaborate on the Scicluna inquiry report. The newspaper also quoted the ministry saying that the board’s conclusion on grounds for disciplinary action to be taken against a number of detention officers was being “considered in detail”.

‘Pathetic’ Muscat trying to deviate people’s attention from Mallia incident– PN

In a reaction, the Nationalist Party said that the Prime Minister has only revealed this report to deviate public attention from the ‘weak leadership’ he had shown in in handling the recent incident involving then Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia.

“It has now become customary that whenever Muscat finds himself with his back against the wall, he digs something out of his bag of tricks to deviate attention,” the PN said. “The latest poor attempt has been his non-revelation of yet another report almost two years after the election.

“If the Prime Minister considers that there was wrong-doing, he should be man enough to do something about it. No wonder that people are getting tired of seeing their Prime Minister abdicate his responsibility instead of doing his job as Prime Minister.”

Simon Busuttil should act – Labour

“For the PN, asking for responsibility to be shouldered because disciplinary steps against officers involved in a person’s death were stopped on a minister’s order is ‘pathetic’.

“Simon Busutill must say how he’s going to answer his first test of responsibility after the Nationalist government ordered the inquiry and then kept it hidden,” the Labour Party replied.