Tomorrow, June 27, three young men will be summoned to the Criminal Court. Amara, Kader and Abdalla are full of hope that the Attorney General has decided the evidence brought against them is not credible. After all, there is no evidence of violence or of hijacking in their case. They will be acquitted at last. The unjust charges brought against them on March 28, 2019 will finally be dropped.
Abdalla is a young, married man from Guinea and the father of two daughters. Jelka, the youngest, has never known her father without a Damocles sword hanging over his head. Abdalla recounts, “the Maltese state accused us of being pirates, terrorists and all kinds of things, which I still don’t understand. After spending seven months and some days in prison, thank God today we are out on parole.”
Reflecting on his current situation, Abdalla continues, “to know that NGOs, associations, human rights bodies and journalists support us in our struggle for freedom gives me hope and strength. The situation has affected my life as I am lost in the dark without knowing where to go. My dream was to become a social worker in the health field, but sometimes I feel all my dreams are shattered. But my little family beside me gives me a smile every day.”
Amara also hails from Guinea and like Abdalla he left to find peace and work in northern Africa, only to find himself in a “horrific situation in Libya.” He explains, “my dream became a nightmare as armed men regularly exploited me for unpaid labour… Lawlessness, kidnapping and rape became normal.”
Despite the travails of the last years, he remains optimistic: “The friendliness and support of the ordinary Maltese people really give me a sense of hope and reassurance in humanity.”
Kader is from the Ivory Coast. He has not only withstood the same injustices as Amara and Abdalla, but also fell from the third floor of a construction site where he was working in 2020. For months, he suffered pain from a broken leg. Now, Kader is studying business management at MCAST. Like the others, he is working to rebuild his life despite the uncertainty.
Tomorrow, all three will awaken before court, hoping and praying that the truth will prevail and they will be acquitted.
The Galatea Seaways case
Recently, Italian prosecutors refused to charge malnourished asylum seekers with attempting to hijack a vessel that was on its way from Turkey to France. They launched an investigation before making charges, questioning the asylum seekers and crew members. They did this despite political pressure from the far-right Italian Defence Minister, Guido Crosetto.
Every day Abdalla, Amara and Kader awake in fear of life imprisonment
The Italian prosecutors asserted that there had been no threat and no violence and refused to charge the asylum seekers, including a pregnant woman and two minors suffering from hypothermia, with attempted hijacking.
This Galatea Seaways case is very similar to Malta’s El Hiblu case. In both cases, exhausted, starving and sick asylum seekers were portrayed by the state as threats and called ‘pirates’. In fact, the captain of the El Hiblu oil tanker chose the three teenagers for their knowledge of English and their ability to mediate with the other rescued travellers. No weapons were ever found in the El Hiblu case.
In contrast, in the Galatea case it was adults and not minors that were under investigation and a knife was allegedly used to cut a tarpaulin under which they hid. On these two counts alone, there is even more reason for Malta’s Attorney General to drop the charges against the El Hiblu 3.
In both cases, the charges were an attempt to criminalise vulnerable people.
Child-friendly justice
In addition, the El Hiblu 3 are suffering a glaring lack of both child friendly and timely justice.
The Council of Europe Guidelines for Child Friendly Justice have been violated, not least because the children were detained for months together with adults.
Meanwhile, in court, the compilation of evidence has dragged on and on. Four years and three months in the life of a 16-year-old is highly significant. Their youth has been stolen. Their future is uncertain. And every day Abdalla, Amara and Kader awake in fear of life imprisonment.
As a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Maltese authorities have a legal responsibility to ensure that “Every child deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity and respect… and in a manner which takes into account the needs of persons of his or her age”.
They also have committed “[t]o have the matter determined without delay…”. These commitments have not been upheld in the El Hiblu 3 case.
At a press conference on June 9, local leaders of the Free the El Hiblu 3 campaign pointed to new evidence that fundamentally questions the credibility of the prosecution’s main witness, Salah el Hiblu.
Backed by a petition with 1,300 signatures and the support of hundreds of international and national organisations, activists continue to call on the Attorney General to drop all the charges against three upstanding young men.