A prison warden tested positive for cocaine and resigned from his job at the Corradino Correctional Facility earlier this week.

Prison authorities confirmed that the warden tested positive for the drug following a routine urine test among prison officials.

“The correctional services agency’s stance on drug use is very clear. Drug use is not tolerated, among inmates and prison officials alike,” a prison spokesperson for said, adding that no other prison official failed drug tests this year.

Multiple sources told Times of Malta that the warden served as a soldier in the Armed Forces of Malta and was dismissed from the army some eight years ago for testing positive for cocaine.

He was eventually employed as a prison warden in 2019, and sources said then prison director (and former army official himself), Alex Dalli gave the go-ahead for his employment despite being aware of his past wrongdoing.

The warden tested positive for the drug following a routine urine test among prison officials

In November last year, former AFM soldier Godwin Schembri, who was fired from the army in 2018 over a satirical video he filmed about the army, took to Facebook warning that the correctional services agency had employed a former army official who had been fired after testing positive for cocaine.

The prison authorities had told Lovin Malta that the former soldier was recruited at CCF through a regular call for applications and that “in adherence with the eligibility requirements, [he] presented a clean police certificate of conduct”.

Questions sent to the AFM remained unanswered at the time of writing and efforts to contact the warden proved unsuccessful.