Updated 7.05pm with victims' family's request

A concluded inquiry into migrant deaths at sea should be sent back to the magistrate responsible because it is missing key pieces of testimony, the NGO which sparked the inquiry is arguing.

In a nine-page letter sent to Attorney General Peter Grech, four lawyers representing Repubblika listed a number of issues it said detracted from the final report drafted by magistrate Joseph Mifsud.

The 450-page inquiry, which was published by the government last week, found no evidence to substantiate claims that Prime Minister Robert Abela or brigadier Jeffrey Curmi had caused the death of migrants left adrift at sea for days before they were returned to Libya on Easter weekend.

But Repubblika noted that testimony given by OPM chief of staff Clyde Caruana and former government fixer Neville Gafa’ was left out of the inquiry report and said that there appeared to have been no effort to contact the 51 migrants who were taken back to Libya alive. Testimony provided by a second group of migrants brought to Malta was also missing, it said.

“The inquiry report is lacking in many ways,” Repubblika said. “The only time when the victims’ names are mentioned is in the complaint that led to the inquiry”.

In their letter (see PDF below), Repubblika’s lawyers listed a series of other alleged shortcomings, ranging from the magistrate’s choice of a court expert to his failure to contact Italian, Libyan or EU border agency authorities.

The NGO accused the magistrate of having conducted the inquiry under the pall of politics, saying that it sought to “absolve Prime Minister Robert Abela of the mortal consequences of his actions in less than four weeks”.

Its lawyers asked the attorney general to provide the NGO with a transcript of testimony presented by all migrants who appeared before the inquiry as well as the testimonies provided by Caruana and Gafa’.

“Everyone deserves justice and the attorney general, inquiring magistrate and police are responsible for ensuring that whenever somebody dies prematurely, all the facts are established even when these facts do not suit the government or those leading it,” the NGO said.

The letter was signed by lawyers Paul Borg Olivier, Andrew Borg Cardona, Evelyn Borg Costanzi and Joseph Ellis. 

Victims' families file separate request 

A separate request for the inquiry to be re-examined was also filed by relatives of two of the victims - Eritrean nationals Mogos Tesfamichael Welday and Filimon Mengsteab Ghebremedhin -  who lost their lives at sea during the rescue operation involving a Libyan fishing vessel, coordinated by Maltese authorities.

In their request, the victims' brother and sister argue that the magistrate's report "lacks legal substance, is void of reference to crucial material evidence at hand and abdicates, in part, of the Magistrate’s duty to collect and preserve further evidence". 

The length of the report, they claim, " was nothing more than to give a false impression of a thorough investigation".

In their letter to the Attorney General, also signed by lawyer Paul Borg Olivier, raise issues over the fact that the migrants were left without assistance for 40 hours in Malta SAR and that supplies arrived when migrants were already six days out at sea, and the failure of the magistrate to interview the returned migrants as "important witnesses who should have been heard". 

Further issues relate to the choice of experts, the lack of mention of depositions by government official Neville Gafa and OPM chief of staff Clyde Caruana over their roles in the operation, and other legal issues.