Almost five months have passed since the day 35-year-old Richmond Tong died while in police custody, and his family is as clueless now as they were then on what caused his sudden death.

They say they are totally in the dark over what happened that fateful day in June when Tong was arrested by the police and taken to the lock-up, where he died a few hours later. 

The veil of secrecy over the death has forced his mother Monica and siblings Maryjo and Ian to file a constitutional case in court, claiming that the Attorney General’s refusal to give them access to documentation to which they have a right as parties to the case, is in breach their fundamental human rights. 

Richmond, from Mtarfa, died after he suffered a seizure in his cell at police headquarters on June 24 at 3.40am. Efforts to keep him alive proved futile. He had been arrested some hours previously on suspicion of possessing cocaine.  

In a statement released after Tong’s death, the police said he died despite being given immediate first aid on-site by a medical team.  Magistrate Josette Demicoli had launched a magisterial inquiry.

A toxicology report was requested, to establish if Tong was under the influence of drugs when he died because his relatives say Richmond had no medical condition they were aware of.

But the family is not being granted access to any of the documentation exhibited in the inquiry proceedings and information from police about the incident.

In their application filed on Monday before the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction against the Attorney General and the State Advocate, the family said they had filed an application before the inquiring magistrate requesting access to documentation but Magistrate Demicoli had turned down the request because the inquiry had not yet been concluded. 

They complained that although it was true that a magisterial inquiry is, in itself, a confidential one, this does not detract from the right of the victim’s relatives to have immediate access to the documents, the entire file being exhibited in the acts of the inquiry and also for information from the prosecuting officer. As the victim's relatives, they were still in the dark on what happened on the day of the incident.

They claimed that their right to freedom of expression was being breached as this right also included access to information. They quoted European Court case law which stated that “the right to freedom to receive information basically prohibits a government from restricting a person from receiving information that others wish or may be willing to impart to him.” 

The relatives, therefore, called on the court to find a breach of their human right and order that they are granted immediate access to the documents filed as part of the magisterial inquiry. 

Lawyers Franco Debono, Marion Camilleri, Amadeus Cachia and Francesca Zarb signed the application.