Statement by the Department of Criminology

The recent events emanating from police reports filed with regards to claimed sabotage of a vessel carrying migrants by AFM officials as well as two others related to inaction to save migrants at sea refer.
The Department of Criminology within the Faculty for Social Wellbeing urges that these reports are investigated with haste to ensure that front-liners who are risking their lives on a daily basis are ensured closure and that front-liners deserve a fair hearing.

The Head of Department Prof Saviour Formosa, also urges that such claims to the Police and the Courts are made when backed by solid evidence and veer away from sensationalism and the urge to be in the spotlight, such that results of requests would have the adverse affect. The latter relates to the message that has been sent to extreme anti-immigrant groups such as that in Italy, which groups have been strengthened intolerably by the ECHR’s rejection of the call for port closure. This scenario has strengthened the hand that seeks to push the brunt of the current economic and future ecological migrants towards Malta, without a back-up plan to prevent loss of life at sea. The need for a comprehensive approach towards migration should be European-wide and it is there that such claims should be targeted as the recent years and even more during the past days showed that the EU response has failed its own states. Where states and super-states fail, opportunities for crime explode and in this scenario, offenders are seeking new venues to exploit the poor, the desperate and those seeking help. The current situation, where the European lack of solidarity has left all wanting, is ripe for criminal exploitation.

Seeking to incarcerate front-liners only aids the criminal domain not mitigate its escalation and the Department, which has been at the forefront together with frontliners in the security and safety expresses its solidarity with the persons targeted in the police reports. Should there be guilt, the rule of law will take its natural path, but based on evidence not shooting from the hip.

Solidarity is extended also to the AFM Head Brigadier Jeffrey Curmi who lectures at the Department of Criminology within the Faculty for Social Wellbeing as well as forming part of the DVI (Disaster Victim Identification) Task Force set up between the AFM, MPF Police Force, CPD, Health Authorities, the University of Malta and the Academy for Disciplined Forces.