A 58-year-old man serving a 12-year prison term for importing drugs died yesterday morning after he fainted at the Corradino Correctional Facility.

An autopsy into the death of the inmate, Joseph Camilleri from Rabat, will be held today.

Sources said investigators were ruling out a drug overdose and the death seemed to have been the result of natural causes.

In a statement issued yesterday morning, the police said Mr Camilleri was walking back to his cell at about 7.55am when he fainted.

He was administered first aid by the prison’s nurses. At about 8.10am the prison doctor arrived and remained with Mr Camilleri, administering first aid, until the ambulance came 10 minutes later.

Mr Camilleri died at Mater Dei Hospital later in the morning. All this was documented on CCTV footage from cameras placed around the prison, the police said.

The police are investigating and a magisterial inquiry is being held.

Last October Mr Camilleri was jailed for 12 years and fined €20,000 after admitting to import cocaine and Ecstasy worth some €260,000 three years earlier.

He admitted to smuggling the drugs in from Rotterdam in a Mercedes van aboard a ship from Genoa via Tunis, on January 26, 2009.

An angry relative rang The Times yesterday morning complaining that the news about Mr Camilleri’s death had been broken before his family were informed.

However, sources close to the prison said that, according to procedure, the people who Mr Camilleri had listed as his next of kin had been informed by 10am.