The Home Affairs Ministry has launched a probe into the prison director's practice of having two inmates act as intermediaries for the rest of the prisoners.

The investigation was launched in the wake of a report in The Sunday Times which revealed that the Dutch inmate at the centre of prison guard abuse allegations used prisoner Leli Camilleri, known as Il-Bully, as an intermediary to help him obtain prison leave.

Prison director Sandro Gatt admitted as much to The Sunday Times and even confirmed that Mr Camilleri's involvement in such requests appears to be more or less standard procedure in prison.

He downplayed the matter, saying that Mr Camilleri and an Arab prisoner (Tunisian Mohsen Mosbah) relay the complaints and requests of their mates - one taking care of Europeans and the other of the Arabs - but that prisoners can still have direct access to him if they want to.

The Dutch drug trafficker, 32-year-old Perry Toornstra, gave a different version, however, saying that inmates could only obtain certain things of they went through Mr Camilleri.

Even the former chairman of the prison board Mario Felice attested to this state of affairs: "... I don't want to elaborate further, but when I was active in the prison until very recently many prisoners were denied certain possibilities, only to gain them through the intervention of this individual. I don't think I need comment further on whether that is healthy," Dr Felice said.

Reacting to the story and the contents of an interview carried out with Dr Felice, a spokesman for the Home Affairs Ministry, Darrell Pace said: "The Ministry is already looking into the claims and allegations made in your report and Dr Felice's interview and will be taking the appropriate action in due course. Any further information in support of the same claims and allegations should be forwarded to this Ministry in the shortest time possible."

Other inmates and a prison guard, who spoke on condition of anonymity, gave a similar picture to that of Mr Toornstra, insisting that Mr Camilleri "runs the show in prison".

Mr Gatt stressed that Mr Camilleri merely relayed the message in Mr Toornstra's case and that inmates are not forced to go through Mr Camilleri - in fact he sees a number of prisoners directly every day.

Dr Felice, however, insisted: "Certainly Mr Camilleri leads a very prominent role in the prison. He enjoys a lot of things which others do not, including access to the prison director..."

Mr Camilleri, a convicted drug trafficker who is serving 35 years for planting a bomb outside the home of Assistant Police Commissioner Michael Cassar, also insisted he had simply relayed a message in Mr Toornstra's case.

With regard to his own role he said: "The director put me in charge to relay the messages of inmates to him... Everyone is claiming things about me, painting me as God knows what. I'm not an angel but I'm not the devil either."

mmicallef@timesofmalta.com