The Nationalist Party this morning called for political responsibility to be shouldered for the second death in three months of a person in police custody.

In a statement this morning, deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami said it was no consolation that the deaths took place when the detainees were not under the protection of the officers in charge.

It was also no consolation that a magisterial inquiry was appointed and this was because this inquiry could take a long time to be concluded and its conclusions would not necessarily be made public.

The conclusion of the inquiry into the first death had still not been published, he said.

Dr Fenech Adami noted that, in the last legislature, when a person had committed suicide while under arrest, the Labour Party had carried out a campaign calling for political accountability and for the resignation of the then Home Affairs Minister.

But Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was now silent.