Updated 2.45pm with MEP comments

Maltese activists on Wednesday met outside the European Parliament in Brussels to urge MEPs to pressure Malta into dropping hijacking charges against three young men.

Demonstrators included members of Moviment Graffitti, the Women's Rights Foundation and MGRM, as well as Labour MEP Cyrus Engerer, who has played a leading role in bringing the plight of the El Hiblu 3 to public attention. 

Engerer told Times of Malta that he considered himself an activist and that he had focused his time in the European Parliament on helping "voiceless" people be heard within EU institutions. 

It was therefore fitting to wrap up his mandate by helping Maltese activists do so in the European capital, he said. 

Also present was Engerer's partner, Labour MP and party CEO Randolph Debattista. 

Engerer and his Brussels-based team helped coordinate Wednesday's activity and are also assisting Maltese activists planning other events linked to women's reproductive rights and transgender people to be held in Brussels this week. 

Wednesday's demonstration focused on a decision by Malta's attorney general to press ahead with the criminal case against Amara Kromah, Abdul Kader and Abdalla Bari.

The trio stand accused of hijacking an oil tanker when they were teenagers. 

Kader has been missing since summer and is believed to have fled Malta. If located, he will be brought to Malta to stand trial alongside the other two. All three - dubbed the El Hiblu 3 - could face life sentences in prison if found guilty. 

Lawyers representing the accused have petitioned the criminal court to throw out the case. International activists - including Amnesty International and a coalition of human rights advocates, scholars and religious leaders - have long campaigned for the case against the accused to be dropped. 

Former President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca has described the case as a “farce”, Archbishop Charles Scicluna has said charges should be dropped and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) has also criticised prosecutors' handling of the case. 

An MGRM spokesperson at the Brussels demonstration said the case of the El Hiblu 3 exemplified Europe’s systematic attempts to criminalise people on the move. 

"We call on MEPs to put pressure on the Maltese authorities to drop the charges and put an end to this injustice which has been going on for far too long. 

 "We reiterate that resisting illegal pushbacks to Libya is not a crime, and certainly not a terrorist act." 

Activists held banners urging for the freedom of the three youths and handed out leaflets to passers-by raising awareness about the cause.

'They are heroes, not terrorists': Engerer

Engerer on Wednesday said the three youths were "heroes" and not terrorists.

"It is thanks to them that 108 people did not end up drowning in the Mediterranean Sea that has become a cemetery because of a fortress Europe that speaks a lot about solidarity, values and human rights but then creates walls when it comes to saving people who are being murdered, raped and tortured in Libya," Engerer told the protest.

The people aboard the vessel had no choice but to keep pushing to come to Europe. Otherwise, they would have been pushed back to certain death, torture and rape, he added. 

'Absolutely appalling, an abomination': MEPs join demonstration

The demonstration drew the attention of some of the members of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, who on Wednesday addressed the activists.

Among them, Irish MEP Clare Daly said it was "absolutely appalling" that the activists had to make it to the parliament to protest an "abomination".

"It is absolutely disgraceful that three innocent young men who sought refuge in Europe, who sought to help their fellow refugees find themselves criminalised and abandoned by a system that they look to in hope," she said.

"What is even more disgraceful is that they are only symptomatic of a much larger component of people who are criminalised across Greece and other European countries."

The very same companies profiting from war and destabilisation in the Middle East and around the world are the same ones reaping the profits from border regulation and policing, she said.

Fellow Irish Mick Wallace, Thijs Reuten and Tinneke Strikfrom the Netherlands, and Dietmar Koster from Germany were among those who added their voice and urged the activists to keep up the pressure.

The El Hiblu saga 

 Bari, Kromah, and Kader are alleged to have hijacked the ship that rescued them at sea, the El Hiblu, after fearing that its captain was returning them to Libya. 

As the tanker sailed to Malta, it was intercepted by an AFM special forces unit, which took control of the vessel and brought it to shore. All three were detained, arrested and charged following that March 2019 incident. 

They were just 15, 19 and 16 years old at the time. 

They were charged with crimes ranging from acts of terrorism to illegal arrest and private violence and held in police custody for eight months before being granted bail in November 2019.

They deny charges and say they were just serving as translators for others aboard the ship, as they spoke English and could communicate with the captain.