Prisoners still on hunger strike

Inmates at the Corradino civil prison yesterday continued their hunger strike to pressure the government into granting an amnesty on the occasion of Malta's accession to the European Union tomorrow.

About half of the total of about 250 prisoners started refusing food on Tuesday.

Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg was away from Malta yesterday and a spokesman for the ministry said that no decision over the amnesty had yet been taken.

The hunger strike was the second form of action taken in recent days by the inmates after earlier this week they refused to carry out duties of cooking and carpentry.

Mid-Dlam ghad-Dawl, the organisation working with prisoners and former prisoners which had first made the call for an amnesty, has disassociated itself from the hunger strike and appealed to inmates to stop.

The organisation raised a petition calling for an amnesty, collecting some 4,000 signatures. It has been presented to the Prime Minister.

Fr Mark Montebello, the Dominican priest who runs the organisation, said yesterday he had wished the amnesty to be an act of grace by the government.

"Our strategy was to do everything possible to win the amnesty for the prisoners and then let the Cabinet decide.

"Despite the protest strike by the inmates, we still think that an amnesty would be the right thing to do," Fr Montebello said.

The last amnesty given to prisoners was when Pope John Paul II came to Malta in May 2001