The inmates who sold drugs in prison 10 years ago are still doing so today and the authorities know about this, former convict Charles Muscat, il-Pips, told The Sunday Times yesterday.

Who is really to blame here, the junkie or the prison authorities who should have made sure there was a drug free environment?

“Of course these things are still being done. What was done to stop the drugs? Did anything happen to the people selling drugs? They are still selling them,” he said.

“These are prisoners serving long sentences. They run the prison. They are still making thousands and most of them are not junkies. They do it purely for money,” he said.

“If (female inmate Josette) Bickle is the Queen, there must be a King. They know who the king is in there too.”

Mr Muscat, who was released from prison in August after serving 17 years of a 25-year sentence, said he was still aware of what went on in Corradino.

He was speaking in the wake of Ms Bickle’s conviction last week for trafficking heroin with impunity in the female section of the Corradino Correction Facility between 2006 and 2008.

She was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment, but the trial judge, Mr Justice Michael Mallia, condemned the whole prison system which he said had “failed” in allowing Ms Bickle to “operate with impunity”, indicating “collusion with the authorities”.

The government defended itself, saying that things had changed since Ms Bickle’s time and that her case had come about precisely because of an inquiry in 2008.

However, according to Mr Muscat the inquiry, which was never published, focused on the small operators.

“What happened to the director? (Sandro Gatt, who resigned at the time). He left and went back to the police force. What’s more, the current director (Abraham Zammit) was his deputy at the time. Where was he when this was going on? Where were the other managers, the majors and the officers? It’s the small fry that got the blame,” he insisted.

So far, Mr Gatt has refused to comment, saying only that any questions should be directed to the police.

The Sunday Times asked the police about him and even about the fact that he formed part of the same department that was probing the Bickle case. However, no response to these questions was forthcoming.

The police’s media office did say, however, that five people, including Bickle, had been charged as a result of the inquiry, adding that they were “now reviewing and evaluating evidence tendered before the criminal court for any other possible action which may be required.”

The Prime Minister yesterday said he had nothing to add to a statement issued by the government on Friday, saying he felt it addressed the issues raised.

But Mr Muscat also rubbished another line of defence brought forward by the government, which claimed that of 480 drug tests carried out between 2010 and 2011, only about two per cent were positive.

“This figure amounts to less than one test per inmate per year,” he pointed out (according to the latest count there are 600 inmates in prison). “It’s obvious that you are not going to have a high count of positive tests.”

“The reality is that the tests stopped being so rigorous because there was a time when the government used to get a lot of flak when the results were exposed through parliamentary questions.”

This view was supported by the former head of the prison board, Mario Felice, who in 2008 resigned in protest over the running of the prison, practically forcing Mr Gatt’s departure. Mr Felice said in his time a third of prisoners would test positive for drugs when tests were carried out. Moreover, he said that the statistics used by the government implied that “random testing is no longer carried out”.

The government claimed that the tests are carried out on the basis of suspicion. However, Dr Felice said this method “is prone to human bias”.

Beyond the testing, Mr Muscat argued that the “Queen” label for Ms Bickle was misleading because she was a heavy user like the other inmates she supplied.

“The only difference is that Bickle found a way to get the drugs into prison and that meant she could fund her habit and have enough to give for free to other inmates in return for favours. But who is really to blame here, the junkie or the prison authorities who should have made sure there was a drug free environment?”

Mr Muscat had been jailed for a double murder in September 1994, committed after a heavy binge on cocaine. He admitted after he left prison that he picked up a heroin addiction as an inmate but now insists he is clean and reformed.

As with his case, he said that the system had worked against Ms Bickle.

He said he agreed with the judge’s suspicion that the prison authorities tolerated the situation because drugs kept the inmates quiet.

“The only time there is panic in prison is when a syringe is found and this is because an inmate can overdose with a syringe and that looks bad. If inmates smoke heroin, they’re quiet and will not overdose”.

Information lockdown

As the public eye zeros in on the Corradino Correctional Facility, it appears prison authorities are instituting a communications lockdown.

A request by The Sunday Times to speak with an inmate yesterday was flatly turned down by a warder at the prison’s front desk, who said that there had been a policy change.

Previously, anyone wishing to speak to a convicted inmate could contact Corradino and inform staff of their request. The inmate would then be told of the contact and be given the opportunity to call back.

But the system appears to have changed, with the front desk warder saying yesterday that it had been modified following a number of “security issues”.

He did not elaborate.

The shift in policy comes after the prison director Abraham Zammit recently refused a request by The Times to interview an inmate.

This means the only way the press can contact a prisoner over the phone is if the inmate makes a call to them on his own initiative. However, it is not clear how an inmate is expected to know that the press would like to speak with them.

An inquiry into prison maladministration launched in 2008 was prompted after Dutch drug convict Perry Toornstra blew the whistle on prison administration through The Sunday Times.

Mr Toornstra had said that he had used a fellow prisoner, Leli Camilleri (Il-Bully), as an intermediary to obtain prison leave.

The revelation of inmate favouritism had led to the resignation of then-prison director Sandro Gatt and the launching of the as-yet unpublished inquiry.

Attempts to ask Corradino prison director Abraham Zammit on the change in prison policy proved futile.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.