Isabelle Galea is haunted by guilt after making the heart-wrenching decision to report her son to the police, hoping it would compel him to confront and overcome his battle with drug addiction.

Tragically, her efforts to save him had a devastating outcome – her son, Colin Galea, took his own life while in prison.

“We were told, even by the court, that he would be given the care he needed. What care? They gave him back to me dead,” Isabelle says.

The mother says she feels guilty she reported her son after 10 years of trying to help him.

“I thought he’d be better off in there [prison], that they would help him and send him to a [drug rehabilitation] programme... It would have been better if I left him with the drug addition, at least I’d see him,” she says.

Her son was one of 14 people who died in the space of three years during the time when Alex Dalli served as director of the Corradino Correction Facility between 2018 and 2021. Many of the deaths were by suicide.

The others who died were: Mamadou Sakine, Seajay Cardona, Steve Farrugia, Noel Calleja, Mario Jean-Paul Carmelo Fenech, Francis Formosa, Ben Ali Wahid Ben Hassine, John Attard, Gordon Calleja, Nazzareno Mifsud, Ihtisham Ihtisham, Kim Borg Nicolas Virtu and Arun Jose.

The realities of life inside the prison are highlighted in the documentary – The Kordin Prison Scandal – put together by Andrew Azzopardi and Peppi Azzopardi.

Andrew said the initiative for the documentary stemmed from a desire to shed light on “that dark period”.

“This troubling time exposed significant systemic issues within the correctional facility.

"It is widely acknowledged that the situation was dire, ultimately leading to the resignation of former director Dalli, despite his evident support from both the [Home Affairs] Minister and the government.”

Dalli suspended himself in 2021 following a string of suicides and deaths behind bars that saw simmering concerns about his methods boil over. 

An inquiry probing internal procedures at the Corradino Correctional Facility concluded that Dalli, a former army colonel, would not be reappointed prison director.

Andrew Azzopardi said the documentary aimed to illustrate that improvements began taking shape following Dalli’s tenure. It also highlighted that many inquiries into these deaths remained unpublished and, in some cases, possibly incomplete. It also ensured that lessons were learned.

Peppi Azzopardi added: “We tried to put all the things that happened over the years together, and add some more, and the question remains: it’s as though nothing happened. No action was taken. But here, through this documentary, we are showing that it is not true that nothing happened. A lot did. And it cannot happen again.”

Martin Borg Nicolas Virtu and a young Kim.

Mentally traumatised

The documentary features a section about Kim Borg Nicolas Virtu who also ended her own life while in prison. Her father, Martin, spoke about how she was “mentally traumatised” in prison.

Marica Cassar, who knew the victim through Caritas, said she was a vulnerable person who ended up becoming addicted to drugs. But there were moments when Caritas attempts to reach her in prison were blocked.

The one-hour documentary also features an old interview with Ben Ali Wahid Ben Hassine – the longest-serving inmate facing a life sentence.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment in February 1992 for his part in the 1988 murder of two taxi drivers and two men, one British and the other French, in an 18-day killing spree that shocked the island.

Kim Borg Nicolas Virtu.

In 2017 his application for a review of his sentence was thrown out. He died two years later.

In the interview he was quoted saying: “I made a mistake and I have to pay for it”.

Peppi Azzopardi spoke about the need to replace the current prison system with a place that deprives people of liberty but not their dignity – and offers social reform.

The documentary explored a range of issues that were in the media over the past years: a poster telling inmates that prison was a place where “they learn fear”, claims that Dalli put a gun to the mouth of an inmate, about a chair used to punish prisoners and claims of abusive solitary confinement.

The claims were the subject of several libel cases that were thrown out by the courts.

Inmate Alfred Bugeja, known as Il-Porporina, shared his story about how he first entered prison at the age of 16 for stealing cars – after his schoolteacher had encouraged him to steal the wipers of a car for him.

He also started taking drugs in prison and eventually ended up getting his wife arrested for smuggling drugs into prison for him.

“I aged in prison. I lost my parents and my wife…. I don’t want others to go through what I went through,” he says.

This is why the documentary ends with recommendations that include removing solitary confinement, allowing media uncensored access, providing training to inmates, and addressing drug addiction which impacts 51 per cent of inmates.

Alfred Bugeja, Il-Porporina.