Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/437144
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 21 DECEMBER 2014 Opinion 21 My name is Ifeanyi and I am dead Saviour Balzan @saviourbalzan Dear Simon, I hope you are well and will find time to read this letter. My name is Ifeanyi, really my full name is Ifeanyi Nwokoye and I am Nigerian. I am sorry that I cannot talk to you in person, because I am no longer, in fact I am dead, very dead. I was 29. I have been dead since April 2011. I was buried two years later. They said, well your government of the day had said that I had died of natural causes. Between you and me I got so badly beaten that I could not live anymore. By the way I am black. I feel sorrowful that the inquiry on another unfortunate victim of soldier abuse found that the abuse was rampant and your Home Affairs Minister was close to what I am today – he was as good as dead. There is little doubt that the timing by Joseph Muscat's government in issuing the Kamara inquiry report, which refers to my unpublished inquiry (concluded under the PN administration) report was how do you say… diabolical. But the decision by your government in 2011 not to publish the report was in fact criminal. I love to see how politicians accuse each other of being in the wrong and in the right. You say you had nothing to do with the things that happened in the past. It makes sense, but I do not understand that you choose not to refer to the past when bad things happen but find it very convenient to refer to the past when you talk about your achievements such as EU accession, the Libya crisis and the economy. Bear with me, Mr Simon, as I take you through the time line of these events. Please remember that my name is Ifeanyi and I am black and in Safi the conditions were very bad and there were some very bad people who were your soldiers. Please understand why I left my homeland. I wanted a better life, I wanted a future. I crossed the Sahel, the Sahara and then the sea. What a scary experience. I never knew Malta. And I never imagined what I would find here in your country. It was worse than at home. On that day in Safi we escaped. I was discovered with an Algerian man. What happened after is too horrible to repeat here. You know, don't you, that last February two soldiers and a detention service officer were charged with involuntarily killing me shortly after I was arrested. Do you know the difference between involuntary and voluntary? I don't. All I know is that I am dead. It is over for me. Between you and me it is as boring up here as it was in Safi. Nothing much to do, a lot of day dreaming and time wasting. Roderick Azzopardi, 29 the same age as me, from Zabbar, who was second in command at the Hal Far detention centre; Bombardier Aldo Simiana, 41, from Birkirkara and Bombardier Carmela Camilleri, 55, from Zurrieq (now a detention centre officer) are denying they did anything wrong. Well, that is new. Mr Simon, my case first came to light when the media remembered that my body had been kept in the hospital morgue for two years. Burial was only allowed last July. A magisterial inquiry into what happened was concluded in 2012 and then it was up to the Attorney General to decide whether to take any action against the officers allegedly responsible for my death. I have the impression, Mr Simon, that the Attorneys General in this country serve the government of the day and not the quest for truth and justice. Mr Simon, witnesses saw Roderick Azzopardi punch me before four officers apprehended me. Four to five officers then took me handcuffed back to the detention centre. I was unconscious in the isolation cell, it was cold and dirty and I remained there about an hour – not able to move and in great pain. Do you believe in God, Mr Simon? I do. Even though I know that there is no justice in your world. I know that this woman Camilleri and Bombardier Simiana checked on me when I was unconscious but did nothing, I needed medical attention, but nothing happened. Mr Simon, do you know how it feels to die. That great flash of white and then it is over. I died on my way to hospital after suffering from a heart attack. I was only 29 and I had a good heart and many dreams, but I had too severe a beating to survive. I have to say I cried when I heard that Police Inspector Keith Arnaud had told Magistrate Saviour Demicoli that the three officers were charged with manslaughter since I did not die as a direct result of the injuries I sustained during the beating. I find this very funny and at the same time very sad. To be precise, Roderick Azzopardi was being held responsible for the beating while Bdr Simiana and Ms Camilleri had to answer for failing to check whether I needed to see a doctor before I was placed in the isolation cell, which fell under their responsibility. Now, Mr Simon, I heard that recently – only last week, you said that you had paid for all the mistakes and political responsibility because you lost the election. Really, Mr Simon, you remind me of Nigerian politicians, they treat their listeners and voters like morons. But, Mr Simon, let me remind you about something very important. Just after my death, the head of the Safi camp, Lieutenant Colonel Brian Gatt, recommended that disciplinary action be taken against a number of officials for having ignored protocol and regulations. He was shot down, excuse the pun, by the Home Affairs Minister, Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici. It is a great shame and a scandal. Even in Nigeria it would be a resigning matter. I thought that this Mifsud Bonnici was a religious and good man. He now turns out to be a weak man and not a very good man. I wonder, Mr Simon, the fact that you lost the election, does this absolve Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici too? Is this some new kind of political philosophy that you are espousing. I died sometime in the night between 16 and 17 April, 2011. Four months later, to be precise on 26 August, 2011 the inquiry board submitted its recommendations. Two months later, on 13 October, 2011 Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici published the recommendations and he said in the statement that he would take disciplinary action without any hesitation. Not uttered by your holier than thou Mifsud Bonnici is that six month before this statement Mifsud Bonnici had instructed the head of Safi, Brian Gatt, to do… excuse my language… the exact opposite. Finally, on 6 February, 2014 three of the people mentioned in the inquiry were arraigned in court convicted of murdering me involuntarily. Dear Mr Simon, I can tell you that when you are murdered it is rather irrelevant whether it was involuntary or voluntary. Dead is dead. Mr Simon, I know that deep in your heart you know that your MP Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici does not deserve to be a member of your party. But you do not have the balls to turn around and ask him to leave. I know that politicians are not very brave. Some I know are braver than others, others are good at talking and making empty promises. Others are great at lying and others at finding excuses for their mistakes. I do not know what is best. All I know is that I am dead, and perhaps I would have been better off staying in Nigeria. And I also know that the men and women of your world are very good at blaming each other but not of owning up to their failures and errors. I wish you well and hope that you will find the courage to do what is right. Ifeanyi Nwokoye Murdered department, Migrant sector, Paradise for humans, The Universe SIMON36000