Disgraced former prisons director to receive €103,000 annual salary for new role

Retired Colonel Alex Dalli, forced out of his job as prisons director last December following a raft of scandals including 13 deaths on his watch, has been granted a new €103,000 job by the government, The Shift can reveal.

Dalli has been posted overseas, as a government envoy in Libya, to “coordinate with the Libyan authorities on issues related to illegal migration”, according to a bilateral agreement signed between the two countries in 2020.

While the office from which Dalli will be working is unclear, except that it will be in Tripoli, the former prisons director will be receiving a financial package of €103,000 a year, according to his contract seen by The Shift and obtained through a Freedom of Information request.

The generous salary is topped with allowances that cover expenses related to communications, transport and compensation for living abroad, among other perks.

The contract is for one year but can be renewed every year, up to a maximum of six years. He is employed as a person of trust by Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri.

According to the previous contract he had as prisons director, also on a person of trust basis, the government could terminate Dalli’s contract with a month’s notice and no further obligations. Instead, the government chose to give Dalli, who is facing serious questions on potential human rights abuse at the Corradino Correctional Facility on his watch, another, more lucrative position in a country condemned by international human rights organisations for its treatment of asylum seekers.

Through his new overseas posting, Dalli will see his annual income increase by €35,000, above his previous salary as prison director of €68,000.

While Minister Byron Camilleri spent months defending Dalli’s track record in the face of an abnormal amount of deaths in prison, the former army pilot “suspended himself” in December as news emerged of the thirteenth dead body found in a cell.

Minister Camilleri had said that he would be using “Dalli’s talents” in another area, which is now clear is in Libya on the sensitive issue of migration.

The Shift is informed that Dalli’s new role is to manage one of two ‘migration coordination centres’ agreed through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between Prime Minister Robert Abela and Fayez al-Sarraj, the Head the Government of National Accord until 2021.

According to this agreement, Malta and Libya agreed to set up a three-man coordination unit in each country to assist in operations against illegal migration. These two centres will be based in Valletta and Tripoli, each with three officials from each country.

All expenses incurred, including those on the Libyan side, are being forked out by Maltese taxpayers.

International organisations, such as Amnesty International, have already raised concerns about this new ‘initiative’, fearing that the so-called coordination centres will be used for pushbacks of asylum seekers trying to cross over to Europe.

Alex Dalli will now be Malta’s official in Libya together with two Libyan officers posted in the coordinating centre.