Judge suspects jail of drugs collusion

The ease with which the “queen” of Corradino prison Josette Bickle managed to smuggle drugs into jail pointed to “collusion” with the prison authorities, a judge said yesterday as he slammed the whole system.

“The large number of visits allowed to Josette Bickle on top of what other prisoners got, and the ease with which drugs used to enter her division and come into her possession cannot but indicate collusion with authorities,” Mr Justice Michael Mallia said.

The judge, a 25-year veteran of the Bench, made the comments as he jailed Ms Bickle for 12 years and fined her €23,000 for trafficking heroin in prison over a period of two years.

However, Mr Justice Mallia insisted that she should not bear the full brunt of the blame. He was not giving her a heavier sentence (the maximum is life) because she was “clearly... not alone”.

“The jurors’ verdict is not only a verdict against Josette Bickle but against the system which allowed her to operate with so much impunity for so long,” he said.

In fact, he spoke of a “failed” prison system, which “has nothing correctional about it” but “is rather serving the opposite function where people who are relatively clean are at great risk of coming out of prison worst than they went in.”

He went a step further, suggesting that the problem might extend beyond the “prison’s confines” because despite the fact that the prison’s director at the time (Sandro Gatt) was removed, the problem remains.

“It is true that it is impossible for the prison to be completely free of drugs but here we are talking of an institution which is supposed to have the highest level of security in the country...”

Ms Bickle’s case came to light in the wake of an inquiry which was called following allegations that Mr Gatt gave preferential treatment to notorious drug trafficker Leli Camilleri, known as Leli il-Bully.

The inquiry report was never published, however, prosecuting inspectors Victor Aquilina and Jesmond Borg testified as part of the case against Ms Bickle, saying parts of that document had triggered the investigation that led to Ms Bickle’s arraignment.

During the case, former inmate Pauline Pisani said she had practically been enslaved by Ms Bickle while in prison and gave a damning account of events in the female division A at the Corradino Correctional Facility, where drugs were consumed with impunity.

In his judgement, Mr Justice Mallia referred to this testimony, saying: “It is shocking to listen to a witness say that drugs in prison were so easy to come by that their delivery was described as ‘door to door’ when on the outside you would have to look around for it”.

The judge even pondered the possibility that the situation was being “tolerated” as a means to keep the inmates quiet with an over-populated prison without considerably adding warders.

“The court wishes that this is not the case, that this reasoning is incorrect but cannot avoid these suspicions...” he said.

In submissions on punishment, made a few hours before judgement was handed down, defence lawyer Roberto Montalto also referred to his client’s environment in her defence.

“She might have been the queen but she was surrounded by princesses,” he said.

The lawyer then referred to a previous judgement, handed down in 2005, against former prison warder Raymond Gerada, who was jailed for two years for trafficking drugs in prison.

He said this case was worse than his client’s, precisely because he was a warder. He questioned how this case was decided in the Magistrates’ Court when Ms Bickle was taken before a jury, a higher court.

Dr Montalto said the amount of drugs actually found was minor.

The judge referred to this argument in his judgement, saying the small amounts probably amounted to kilos over the two years in which Ms Bickle operated the racket.

Lawyer Jason Grima, representing the Attorney General, pushed for a life sentence, arguing Ms Bickle had done a lot of harm to other prisoners through trafficking, while enjoying the spoils and cash she earned from the crime.

He also noted that she had relapsed and asked the court to take the circumstances of how she sold the drug into consideration.

During the trial, which began on Monday, jurors heard four main witnesses – three former inmates and one about to leave – on how they bought drugs from Ms Bickle and paid with whatever items they could.

Three of them, Pauline Pisani, Elaine Muscat and Maria Conċetta Borg, spoke of how they had been turned into her slaves, being made to do tasks such as shaving her private parts, doing her hair, washing her in the shower, cleaning her cell and doing her laundry.

Ms Muscat, who was the last to testify, said that while serving time she could remember how the day came when it was Ms Bickle’s turn to leave jail and she needed the help of practical­ly the whole division to haul all her stuff out.

She recalled moving two of the four television sets from an empty cell where Ms Bickle stored the spoils of her trafficking. She also had a surround sound system and mobile phones (against prison rules) besides mounds of clothes and lockers full of tobacco.

Lawyer Marion Camilleri also appeared for Ms Bickle.