A Bolt From the Blue

Of all the possible outcomes of the inquiry into the death of Nicholas Azzopardi the least damaging to the country's institutions will be that he sustained his injuries in attempting to escape from police custody. That alone would be a disaster.

It would mean that his arresting officers and interrogators had failed to keep him under proper control and that he had been driven to affect an escape that put his life into manifest danger. The blackest rider is added by the questions asked as to the care received in hospital.

The magisterial inquiry instituted to establish the facts in connection with injuries sustained during an escape from custody has been transformed by events into an inquiry into the death of the detained person. Its function is to establish responsibilities and to determine whether somebody should stand trial for them. At this time it is not for the inquiring magistrate to establish guilt; nobody has yet been charged but the quality of the evidence available will already indicate whether anybody can be found guilty. It already seems improbable that guilt beyond a reasonable doubt can be proven. The only witness is the victim and he is no longer available for cross-examination.

Corroboration by witnesses would have to be a confession by his alleged assailants. Material evidence from the crime scene or crime scenes, as well as that recovered from the victim's body during the autopsy, may or may not be sufficient to sustain any possible thesis but seems unlikely to provide proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The victim's relatives, vehemently demanding justice, have the odds stacked high against them.

The internal inquiry launched by the Minister of Home Affairs is another matter. Judge Albert Manchè has been commissioned to determine what went wrong, and something certainly did go wrong, and to make recommendations to avoid any future repetition of
such failures.

The magisterial inquiry focuses on criminal responsibility, on the question whether anyone should stand trial and for what. The Manchè inquiry examines whether an administrative failure has taken place, if so, why and what can be done for similar failures to be avoided in future. It is not Judge Manchè's job to recommend that anyone stands trial. It is not Magistrate Vella's job to recommend a change in the law governing detention or in police interrogation practices. Both are legal experts and need not be told how to keep out of one another's hair. Not everyone will understand their careful avoidance of one another. Both are very likely to leave many of us unsatisfied, most of all those who most crave closure and a tidy conclusion.

At the outset, all the circumstances seem to conspire against all parties involved. The victim's family, already stricken by their loss, seem unlikely to obtain even the relief of knowing with any certainty what actually took place. Everybody else is under suspicion because, no matter how painstakingly scrupulous anyone may inquire into this affair; there remains the simple fact that a public authority is inquiring into events that put the credibility of another public authority at stake.

The fact of our minuscule size does matter. In cases such as this the odds are heavily against anyone labouring to ensure that justice is seen to be done. Our geography is against us and our politics don't help. In a land where everything is all too easily short circuited, faith in due process wavers between being a grace from God and proof of naiveté. Our land denies us the hope of conviction.

While anticipating the bitterness of not knowing at the end of it all, it may be useful to set this tragedy against the background formed by several others in our history. The death of Nicholas Azzopardi has not occurred at a time of high political tension by Maltese standards. Because it comes as a bolt from the blue, it is in useful contrast to earlier tragedies because it allows us to pick out the similarities.

The victim's family evidently felt extremely vulnerable and alone, under threat from the institutions set up to ensure their safety. They complain that their demands for protection were left unheeded. There they were freefalling to the bottomless abyss. They were not the first. Instead of leading a posse with all the police force rallying around them, they felt the cold discomfort of knowing that all the vast machinery of state established for their added security may have interests contrary to their own in this case. It is a very frightening feeling.

Many have experienced it before them. Their case makes it clear that any one of us may face it tomorrow. The very fact that this has not taken place in a time of political upheaval and anarchic mayhem should invite us to take a greater interest in the proceedings and to recognise our interest in ensuring that sufficient safeguards are put in place. The next time somebody is summoned to a police station and shouted at we should take an interest too. It is a matter of civil rights, not politics. If we thought everything was put right in the 1987 election, it may be time to have a rethink.

Whether we like it or not, it is the police force which is on metaphorical trial in this case. Conservatives who quiver with anxiety whenever anything connected with law and order is put in question should quiver now. Sceptics who always nourish their paranoia with regard to anything in authority can begin their I-told-you-so mantras. Once we have all knee-jerked to our satisfaction, it may be useful for us to realise that we are on trial together with our police force. Have we been guilty of complacency? Have we minded our own business too much and never wondered about the rights of detained persons? Have we absolved ourselves of any duty to take an interest in such matters too easily, assuming that all was going well? Did we leave it to some vague figure in authority somewhere to make sure that everything is done properly? If we do not safeguard our civil rights, who will?

If by his death Nicholas Azzopardi wakes us up to our share of responsibility, he will not have died altogether in vain. If we only follow his case out of morbid interest and forget it once the din subsides, we may become accomplices in the death of the next Nicholas Azzopardi.