A total of 137 prison inmates, including 47 foreigners, are being held in preventive custody in prison though they are still presumed innocent, according to figures given in Parliament.
Lawyers told this newspaper such numbers remained more or less constant along the years. Among those awaiting trial in prison, the majority face drug-related charges. Thirty are accused of conspiracy in drug trafficking, eight with drug trafficking and possession and six with importation of drugs. Six have been charged with possession of drugs with the intent to supply.
The second most common crime is aggravated theft, with 27 inmates facing the charge. Six are awaiting trial for wilful homicide and a similar number face charges of fraud and misappropriation.
The population of the Corradino Correctional Facility stood at 564 last month.
Technically, there is no time limit
No one can be held in preventive custody except by court order. The main reasons for such orders are to avoid tampering with evidence, fear of absconding and suspicion the accused will not attend court. “Technically, there is no time limit for such detention, as long as it is decreed by the courts,” a criminal lawyer told the Times of Malta. However, he pointed out a judgment delivered on August 2, 2012, by the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction.
The case dealt with the conditions of bail granted to Osita Anagboso Obi that included a deposit of €10,000 and a guarantee of €10,000. He was arrested at the airport on March 11, 2010, on suspicion of money laundering. Mr Obi asked for the deposit to be reduced because he could not afford it. It was reduced to €7,000 and later to €6,000. However, Mr Obi was still unable to come up with the money and he remained in jail.
After 28 months and declaring that he would have immediately made the deposit given the money, Mr Obi claimed his detention was in violation of his right to release from arrest. The court noted that bail conditions were intended to serve as a deterrent from absconding. It added that it was hard to imagine that detaining an accused person was the only way to ensure he or she would appear in court, considering that escape by sea without endangering one’s life was unlikely in Malta and that air travel was subject to strict control.
The court decreed that insisting on a deposit of €6,000 violated Mr Obi’s fundamental human rights.
Chief Justice Emeritus Vincent de Gaetano, who sits on the European Court of Human Rights, said in a recent interview with the Times of Malta that committal proceedings could go on for months, or years, while the accused was in pre-trial detention.
He said magistrates in Malta were sometimes “forced” to grant bail because they knew the system would not, in most cases, provide for trial within a reasonable time.
Earlier this year, Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela told Parliament the average 2014 daily cost to keep an inmate was €54.