Prison psychologist Gail Debono has brushed off concerns at prisoner suicides and warned that many reports of the conditions within the four walls of Kordin are “just fiction”.   

Interviewed by MaltaToday, Debono – who is also president of the Malta Chamber of Psychologists – refuted suggestions that prison conditions and the militaristic approach of suspended director Alex Dalli contributed to suicides.

“Are you serious? No! Otherwise, it would imply that people committed suicide ‘because their cell had been painted black’: to mention just one of the claims made in the press…” she said.

Asked whether they might have killed themselves because their lives were made Hell, Debono said “that has more to do with how it was reported, than with reality”.

“As a psychologist, it was never my place to comment publicly about those reports: but what I can say is this,” she said. With every article that came out, I did my own research into the claims – because it is in my own interest to do so: as a psychologist, it is important to reassure myself that I am not working in a place that promotes this behaviour.”

“And this, by the way, was even suggested: that psychologists were ‘doing nothing about their clients being tortured’, and so on.”

“So it was a very difficult time for us; and, well, to be honest I stopped reading articles after a certain point: because I thought that it was all just fiction.”