It was normal for prisoners at Corradino to earn up to €900 a month, warder Alison Sgendo told a court yesterday afternoon during the trial of a former inmate Josette Bickle, accused of trafficking drugs behind bars.

She said that some prisoners earned those amounts when they worked as supervisors as the inmates worked on jobs provided at the prison by Bank of Valletta and Playmobil.

Ms Bickle is accused of trafficking drugs inside prison between 2006 and 2008.

Ms Sgendo is responsible for managing the prisoners' work accounts.

She explained that some prisoners were paid both for their work and for acting as supervisors.

Questioned on a payment of €840 to the accused, Ms Sgendo said it was normal for some of the accused to receive that much - up to €900 - in a month.

Ms Sgendo denied claims by another witness, former inmate Pauline Pisani, that she and the then director of prisons had told Pisani to pay back Bickle amounts which allegedly were due from the days even before their prison terms. A transaction of €34 from Ms Pisani's account to that of the accused was a one off, she said.

Her contact with the prisoners, she said, was over the phone. They sometimes asked her to buy things for them from outside the prison, and she did so, in terms of regulations.

She said that Bickle had been 'naughty' and hard-headed' but that was the case for several other prisoners too.

Josette Bickle, who had been expected to give evidence in her defence, opted not to do so. The trial is expected to end late this evening.

See more evidence given yesterday at

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20111213/local/inmate-says-trafficker-made-her-life-in-prison-hell.398214