The shadow minister for home affairs, Beppe Fenech Adami, said today that the record of five deaths of people in custody in just over three months was the result of mismanagement and bad choices in who runs the prisons.

Speaking a day after a 52-year-old prisoner passed away at Corradino, Dr Fenech Adami told a press conference that up to a short while ago the prisons were run by former Assistant Police Commissioner Ray Zammit, a man who was trapped in a web of controversies.

“The Police Corp has been caught up in controversy and the prison is tangled in a web of controversy,” he said.

The situation at the prisons, Dr Fenech Adami added, had deteriorated to unprecedented levels.

For example, he said, the level of hygiene in the cells was poor. A number of cells meant for one person were holding two. Some inmates were having to resort to washing their clothes in buckets and drinking water which was unfit for consumption.

The quality of food had also deteriorated, and all this was compounded by a drug problem gripping the prison.

Dr Fenech Adami asked why Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela was “hiding” behind a series of magisterial inquiries launched after each of the deaths - the results of which may never even be published.

“A magisterial inquiry looks into criminal actions. However, what we need to know is what is wrong with the system,” he said.

Dr Fenech Adami said the PN had called for such an inquiry to be carried out several weeks ago, however, the government had chosen to carry out an internal one instead.

PN Migration spokesman Francis Zammit Dimech said prisoners and their loved ones were concerned about the state of affairs. It was not fair, he said, that those who had lost relatives, were still being kept in the dark about the circumstances surrounding the deaths.

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.