Anthony Mifsud gets his compensation payment at last

Former prison warder Anthony Mifsud was yesterday finally compensated for being brutally tortured by the police and wrongly jailed for a crime he did not commit in the first step that should close his 28-year battle for justice.

"Justice has been done," he told The Times outside the court house as he broke down in tears of happiness.

Mr Mifsud was wrongly accused with complicity in the escape from prison of Louis Bartolo and Ahmed Khalil Habib in 1982 after being forced at gunpoint to sign an admission of guilt.

He spent three years in prison awaiting trial, a substantial part of which in solitary confinement, but was then found not guilty.

Some 22 years later, in October 2008, he was awarded €186,349.87 by the Constitutional Court after it ruled that his rights to a fair hearing within a reasonable time had been violated.

He was never paid, however, and last week he filed a judicial letter, giving the government a week to pay him what he was due with interest. He finally received payment of €205,349.87 yesterday.

When he got the news from his lawyer, Tonio Azzopardi, that he had received the cheque, Mr Mifsud's first reaction was to ask whether Dr Azzopardi was joking.

Once he confirmed it was no joke, he was overwhelmed with emotion and could not sleep a wink. He met his lawyer yesterday and went straight to his bank.

With a beaming smile, basking in the sunlight, Mr Mifsud said his first purchase would be some new clothes and a car.