A man who police suspect was the mastermind behind a human trafficking operation, on Wednesday filed an emergency application in court, claiming he was being detained by police illegally. But the claim was dismissed by the court after the police argued that the suspect had not supplied information about his residence status and he was therefore being held at an immigration centre. 

Mouhamed Derbel was initially arrested in connection with the arrival last week of a  group of migrants who landed at Delimara undetected. On Monday, a Syrian man was arraigned over the case and the hearing was held behind closed doors. It is understood that the man admitted to his involvement in human trafficking and disclosed his co-conspirators in sworn testimony to the court. 

Earlier on Wednesday, a 35-year-old Egyptian man was also arraigned and charged in connection with the case. Police alleged that Mohamed Ahmed Elgamal ferried the migrants into Delimara and coordinated their drop-off from a mothership that was just outside Maltese territorial waters. 

In the application, Derbel’s lawyers, Jose' Herrera and Matthew Xuereb said that 48 hours had elapsed since their client's arrest and he had yet to be charged with a crime. They insisted that his continued detention was therefore illegal.  

Explaining the timeline of Derbel’s arrest in court, police inspector Karl Roberts said that on Monday, immigration police went looking for an Indonesian man in Birzebbugia and found him working on a boat that had been scuttled.

After asking him for documents, the Indonesian said that the boat was captained by a Tunisian man nicknamed ‘Sarouk’. Shortly after, a man approached the vessel and the Indonesian man pointed identified him as Sarouk. 

Sarouk, whom the inspector identified as actually being Derbel, did not cooperate with immigration police and failed to provide any documentation that proved he had a right to be in the country. Furthermore, Derbel refused to provide police with a current address, employment details or any information that would corroborate his identity and ties to the country. 

Derbel claimed that his documents were being held by the boat’s owner, a certain Roger Mangion, the inspector said, although when contacted the latter denied ever having had possession of Derbel’s documents. 

Derbel was subsequently taken to police lock-up, where the scant details police had on him were run through several law enforcement and immigration databases, yielding no results. 

Under cross-examination, Roberts said that police suspected that the Tunisian man was the “mastermind” of a human trafficking ring between Malta and Libya, but as they were unable to properly identify him, he had yet to be questioned about the case. He was therefore detained solely on the basis of his lack of immigration status. At no point was he under arrest in connection with the criminal case, and under immigration law, the burden of proof on his immigration status fell on him, Roberts said. 

Thus, Derbel was rightfully transferred to the Safi detention centre on Wednesday morning. 

“At no point have we spoken to this man about the human trafficking case because we don’t know who he is and we have no means of identifying him,” Roberts said. 

“He was never under arrest for anything other than his immigration status because we have no way of knowing he is the same man, without identity documents, we don’t even know if he is the same man his lawyers are referring to.” 

Lawyer Matthew Xuereb hotly contested the validity of the detention, arguing that police had gone looking for a man they themselves suspected to be the mastermind of human trafficking when they encountered Derbel.

When legal representatives that included himself had contacted Roberts about the case for disclosure, the inspector had himself indicated that he was being investigated for human trafficking. 

“What we have here are two parallel investigations of human trafficking and another about the immigration status of this man,” Xuereb said. 

While he understood that both issues were in contention and police were under tight timelines to complete their investigations, there was reasonable suspicion that Derbel had been arrested due to possible  human trafficking, Xuereb argued, and when it was realised that the 48 hours had elapsed with not enough evidence having been gathered,  he was transferred into an immigration regime rather than a criminal one. 

“If there is a reasonable suspicion that this man is the mastermind of this operation on which a number of people have already arraigned, then these issues of immigration are peripheral,” he said. 

“I understand that more time may have been needed but, in this case, then police bail should have been considered, but we cannot use the immigration act to camouflage this man’s rights.” 

After a brief adjournment for deliberation, Magistrate Leonard Caruana denied the application, saying that it was clear that the man’s arrest was the result of his failure to comply with questions about his immigration status and, considering the lack of questioning about the human trafficking case, not related to any suspicion of his involvement in human trafficking.