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MT 29 May 2016

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maltatoday, SUNDAY, 29 MAY 2016 26 Letters THE ringleaders of an infant smuggling organisation, posing behind a Karachi- registered charity Called the New United Christian Foundation, would buy new- born children from destitute Pakistani families for just Lm112 (€260), and then sell them to Maltese couples for Lm5,500 (€12,812). Concetta Charles, the Safi woman whose husband Dennis will spend seven years in a Karachi jail for child smug- gling, would appear with a contract in hand and a bill for Lm5,000 (€11,646) up- front for a three-month old girl from Pa- kistan, a child allegedly nursed at the the charity Charles claimed she represented. Childless couples would pay her flight costs to bring their children from Paki- stan, and another Lm500 (€1,165) on receipt of a medical report. Among the conditions on contract, Charles would bind herself to bring to Malta "this girl, up to three months of age who is not black, who is free from any chronic or serious disease, defect or medical condi- tion, physical or mental disability as cer- tified by a medical clinic in Pakistan and a competent authority in Malta chosen by the couple." And yet, despite the New United Chris- tian Foundation being a registered char- ity in Karachi, there was no doubt about how Charles and her Pakistani-born hus- band Dennis were procuring the children they sold to Maltese couples. Just like the scene witnessed by police when they broke down the door at the Charles's bungalow in the Gulshan-I- Iqbal district in Karachi, in March 2002: there they found 11 infants aged 15 days to one year, lying in appalling conditions. The babies had been confined to a sin- gle room, with nothing but an old, dirty mattress on the floor. They slept, fed and passed all their time there. Thirteen passports and fake birth cer- tificates were recovered, two belonging to a couple known as Samina and Iftekhar, who would pose as the children's par- ents. Along with Dennis and the couple, his brother Derrick and mother Joyce are arrested, along with four nannies – hired to look after the babies until they could be take to Malta, a process speeded up by the Pakistani passports the children had been given in Hyderabad, 160km north of Karachi. The children had been allegedly bought from poverty-stricken parents. Many were illegitimate, taken from Karachi social welfare centres. Some of their mothers were taking refuge in the same centres when their suckling babies were kidnapped by the smugglers. One eight-week-old girl taken by the police was close to death and refusing milk, probably because she was being breastfed by one of the four nannies ar- rested on the day. The baby is crying and keeps fainting, police report, refusing even water. According to the preliminary inquiry by judge Javed Qureshi, the recovery of the 11 infants is just the tip of the ice- berg. Dennis Charles admits that at least 100 Pakistani infants were smuggled to Malta between 1998 and 2001. The Mal- tese ministry of social policy admitted to knowing of 39 Pakistani children adopt- ed by Maltese couples. Four of the recovered children had been identified by their parents after they were lodged at the Edhi Child Home. Sajjad Masih identified his two sons — four-year-old Johnson and three-year- old Shahzul — and a one-year-old niece, Erum. A street cleaner, Sajjad told the po- lice he wanted his children to become priests, and that his brother too wanted his daughter to become a nun. A neigh- bouring woman, Martha, told him she knew someone who took children to the United States to be brought up in the priesthood. Sajjad handed over his two sons and his niece to Martha. When some eight months later, he asked about the children's wellbeing, Martha could not give him a satisfactory reply. Similarly, Javed Masih, also a cleaner, told the police his wife was about to give birth to a child when a neighbouring woman, Maqbool, asked him to give the child to her daughter-in-law who lived in the United States, where she would take care of the child. Masih, a father of five and living in poverty, sold his daughter for Rs20,000 (Lm112) to Maqbool. At the time of handing over the girl to Maqbool, she was only eight days old. Despite her husband already having jumped bail in 1998, Concetta Charles was still actively collecting cash from Maltese couples for the children be- ing kidnapped from Pakistani families. In 2001 she laid out an agreement with the Sacco couple where she agreed to bring them a three-month old child for Lm5,500. The agreement fell through and the couple sued Concetta and her husband to retrieve their monies. Both were un- able to attend the court procedures. While Dennis was being held in Pakistan, Concetta's lawyer pleaded that she was "psychologically traumatised" because of her husband's incarceration and "notable financial problems". But the reality of private adoptions is not new. Childless couples often chose to bypass the onerous government regula- tions on adoption, which take time and often demand a thorough assessment of the interested parents. Even the Minis- try for the Family and Social Solidarity is investigating private adoptions which occur after women give birth in pri- vate hospitals which do not register the children under their name. Instead, the mothers are registered as having been admitted for a surgical operation, while the child is handed over to an adoptive couple. The ministry is now working on an Adoption Act after acceding to the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in respect of Intercountry Adoptions, which set up a structure to combat and avoid the sale and trafficking of children through the Department for Social Welfare Stand- ards. Charles adoption ring "bought" infants for just Lm112 Send your letters to: The Editor, MaltaToday, MediaToday Ltd. Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 | Fax: (356) 21 385075 E-mail: newsroom@mediatoday.com.mt. Letters to the Editor should be concise. No pen names are accepted. Is high-rise the way forward? There has been a plethora of touristic and high rise projects which have opted to go for high- rise. Many of them will exceed 35 storeys in height. It is obvi- ous that St George's Park will be home to a number of small sky- scrapers, one at the ITS site, the Villa Rosa site and probably other localities around the bay. One can understand the business think- ing from a number of Maltese entrepreneurs but what is also very clear is that their concern for our landscape is next to nil. We also know that this country is facing a fait accomplit when it comes to planning: of going up to the detriment of Malta's landscape. There has been little or no dis- cussion on the matter. There does not seem to be any thought about the way the aesthetics of the country will be forever changed. It is also clear that the political class are insensi- tive to preserving our landscape and architectural identity. This fine line between develop- ment and environment simply does not exist. Janet Dimech Iklin 28 May, 2006 Seized harmless auto- pistol still not released Referring to my previous letter in your popular publication, my per- fectly harmless and fully licensed and paid auto-pistol, covering 2016, has still not been returned to me, notwithstanding the mailing to me by the General Police Head- quarters on April 4th, 2006 the requisite certification following very close scrutiny carried out by ballistics experts in Floriana. I imagine that a copy of these official documents/reports had also been posted to the St Julian's police station, where all my fire- arms had been correctly recorded since 1988, the year I moved to Swieqi from Sliema. The General Police headquarters must also have filed my initial licence, "to purchase and keep" firearms ever since I turned 18 years of age, and, of course with the approval of my late father, besides by the late Superintendent Emmanuel Calleja CID. Police records prove that at no time since the possession of my very first firearm had I ever vio- lated or abused any of my licensed firearms, both in Malta, and, on two occasions overseas – Libya and Nigeria. I had befriended a most distin- guished, still serving, senior police officer, at the time I had suffered one of my two serious accidents, rendering me incapable of moving both legs without a steel walking- aid. My friend firmly and rightly insists on refraining from intervening in my case, but should properly consult with one of his subordinates currently in charge at the St Julian's police station area, which is notably very rapidly expanding , thus causing the inevitable increase of crimi- nal cases and misdemeanours coupled with consequential traffic problems. Over the past three months, I have been persistently attempting to communicate with the Senior Superintendent in Charge as well as the sergeant controlling the Weapons Office, without any suc- cess at all. On account of my medi- cally certified physical disabilities and partial blindness, I am in no state of fitness to go personally to the station. I am, nevertheless, confident that this situation, so worrying and stressful to me, at age 86, will shortly be resolved. John Louis Curmi Swieqi

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