Death behind bars

Crime and punishment are the essential ingredients that make up the new edition of a book about the history of Maltese prisons since 1800.

The book, Il-Habs: L-istorja Tal-Habsijiet f'Malta Mill-1800, by Edward Attard, a household name in issues dealing with the police and crime, was first published in 2000 to mark the 150th anniversary of the opening of the first phase of Corradino Prison. It has now been republished with a lot of new information.

In this edition, Mr Attard included the list of those who had been condemned to life imprisonment and who died in prison. Reference is also made to prisoners who committed suicide: The youngest was a 15-year-old who hanged himself after being sentenced to 50 days detention in 1875.

Mr Attard also chronicles the murders that took place in the Valletta Great Prison and Corradino Prison.

In Valletta, a prisoner was killed by a cellmate in 1839. The victim was imprisoned in 1837 for stealing a ciborium from the church of St Therese's Convent, in Cospicua. The murderer said that during the night he heard a voice telling him to kill his cell-mate. He got a plank from the bed and struck him until he died.

"There were no such crimes at Corradino. However, in September 1924, Antonio Spiteri, a prisoner who was serving 15 years for trying to kill his wife, killed the chief warder, Salvatore Grech, and store keeper, Albert Pearson. Mr Spiteri escaped from prison and was later found hiding in a dry well close to the Santa Maria Addolorata Cemetery," Mr Attard recalled.

The book contains an introduction by Chief Justice Emeritus Giuseppe Mifsud Bonnici.

Comments made about the book in 2000 by President Eddie Fenech Adami, President Emeritus Guido de Marco, Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg and Labour Leader Alfred Sant are also included.

The book is divided into 12 chapters, one of which deals with alternatives to prisons and amnesties, including references to the use of the parole system introduced in Malta in 1919.

In the chapter about women prisoners, Mr Attard narrates the case of the Marija Schembri, known as Ix-Xuxana. In 1878, she was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. At that time female prisoners were kept in the Ospizio prison in Floriana, but later she turned out to have male characteristics and was transferred to Corradino.

Chapter five is dedicated to executions carried out since 1800 and the Archconfraternity of the Holy Rosary, the Ruzarjanti, who provided spiritual comfort to those condemned to death.

After 1860, executions were held in front of Corradino Prisons and later inside the prison.