A lawyer for two pregnant inmates insisted that the authorities should move them to hospital for medical care, claiming that they were being kept in unacceptable conditions.

The two Bulgarian women, Iliyana Kirilova Ilieva and Genoveva Stoilova, are serving five month sentences for pickpocketing. They are also both at an advanced stage of pregnancy.

In a judicial protest filed on Thursday, lawyer Etienne Calleja accused the director of Corradino Correctional Facility Alexander Dalli for failing to give adequate treatment to these two pregnant women.

The women were being held in “unacceptable conditions”, and Mr Dalli had failed to fulfil his duties to safeguard these women.

The judicial protest also noted that Ms Stoilova had been trying to get pregnant for nine years and had only now managed to do so through In Vitro Fertilisation.

“If she loses the baby, she will almost certainly not be able to get pregnant again,” the judicial protest read.

In the judicial protest, the lawyer also noted that Mr Dalli had offered the women to stay in the library “because it has air-conditioning”.

“These children are certainly not serving a sentence,” the judicial protest noted, adding that Mr Dalli was also responsible for the health of the unborn babies.

The lawyer also noted that the two women were forced to sign a declaration on Wednesday stating that they did not wish to serve out their sentence in Bulgaria.

When they refused to sign the document without the presence of their lawyer, the two women were met with threats, the lawyer said.

The judicial protest warned that any failure to provide the women with the medical care needed would result in the director being held responsible for complications that would arise in the pregnancy.

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