“Do you remember, Prime Minister, when I showed you a framed picture that I managed to get a photo of from the prison? Signed by none other than Alex Dalli, who used to say that he wanted to terrorise prisoners? You had told me that you did not agree with that discourse. What happened? You removed the picture instead of the director of fascist leadership.”

“If it weren’t true what happened in prison, why did Mr. Dalli file five libel cases to deny that he pointed a revolver at prisoners’ heads, that he used a torture chair, that he stripped a woman with her breasts exposed and mocked her? Five libel cases – and do you know what? Mr. Dalli lost them all. All of them. The Court believed the journalists and not him.”

He then went on to ask, “Are you going to tell me you need proof from the Court, Prime Minister? Let me remind you that Mr. Dalli was found guilty in the Constitutional Court of treating a prisoner in an inhumane and degrading way. The Court also found Dalli guilty of punishing this prisoner, not because he did something wrong, but because his partner went on a TV program to talk about prison conditions. And after this sentence, Minister Byron Camilleri still defended him.”

“The Ombudsman found that during those three years of fascist leadership, there was continuous abuse of prisoners. He did not just rely on what prisoners, prison officials, or family members said. He conducted an investigation. For example, they told him that Mr. Alex Dalli used to throw prisoners into a punishment cell. They described the cell as a place with a hole in the floor as a toilet, where instead of a mattress, there was a piece of foam on the floor, a cell without water, and more. The Ombudsman’s representatives went to the prison unannounced and found the cell exactly as the prisoners had described it.”

“Today, I appreciate, Prime Minister, that the prison is no longer recognisable compared to the times of the fascist leadership. I appreciate that you got involved, Prime Minister, so that today we have a director who tries to lead with love, not vengeance – without torture, threats, beatings, and everything else I mentioned above. I appreciate that, without inhumane and degrading treatment, drugs under the new director have decreased compared to Dalli’s time, while tests on prisoners have doubled,” Peppi concluded.

“And now, Prime Minister, I remind you that in prison, 51% of the prisoners are drug addicts – not just drug users, but addicts. What are we doing to heal them? For the sake of their health and in honour of the victims they continue to create if they remain addicts?”

Finally, Peppi turned his attention to Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri.

“We were showing you with facts what was happening, and you were mocking us,” Azzopardi told Camilleri. “With your actions, you have embarrassed an entire party in government. Now, this Ombudsman report speaks about a group of immigrants who ended up in prison: Several witnesses described the way, totally in breach of all admission regulations, in which they were inducted into the CCF.”

“During Dalli’s time, when the Ħal Far riot broke out, they brought them here to the prison grounds, forced them to their knees while handcuffed behind their backs, assigned an officer to each of them, shoved a dog in their faces, and hosed them down with water,” he continued. “And I have officials who told me that after this atrocity, they threw a party and ordered cannoli. I said this publicly, and no one has denied it so far. And you, Minister, have the audacity to promote the director who treated immigrants like trash and send him to Libya to represent Malta in immigration matters. This is unbelievable.”

What do you think after reading this? Do you still agree with Robert Abela’s decision to retain Alex Dalli’s position with a salary of over €100,000?