The case of Nicholas Azzopardi is the talk of the town. His death-bed allegation that he was beaten up by police and later woke from a coma in a hospital bed has the ring of truth about it. At that stage, Azzopardi didn’t know he was going to die. His death was unexpected. So he said what he did knowing that he would have to substantiate it.

This dreadful incident hits home because it has echoes of the past. It also has echoes of the present, in other police interrogation cells elsewhere. We know that these things happen, because they have happened in Malta and they happen in other places still.

The instant reaction to that story when it broke was not “Oh, the man’s a liar”, but “My God, he must be telling the truth.” That wasn’t just my reaction. It was the reaction of almost everyone I spoke to. Past experience and present knowledge have conditioned us to expect this kind of thing. Going in for questioning is like disappearing into a black hole for the next 24 hours or so. It’s just you and the police, with no lawyer present.

Then the police issued a statement and police sources spoke to the newspapers, and that had the ring of truth about it, too. So who to believe? I’m not going to pronounce myself on this one, because from what I’ve read and heard so far, both sides of the story are equally credible and I just don’t know whose “truth” to take on board, which is unusual for me.

I don’t think the police would just start beating somebody up, especially not over something as mundane as what seems to be a case of two estranged parents quarrelling over the kids and one accusing the other of molestation, apparently out of spite though not necessarily so. The police deal with these cases all the time as one marriage after another hit the rocks and the grown-ups involved end up behaving as anything but.

Then again, if Azzopardi – a heavily-built man depicted in press photographs wearing muscle-revealing vests – reacted physically to police taunts, I can well imagine that one of those present at the interrogation lashed out and literally made a hash of things, landing the police officers present in the room with a very serious problem that they might have solved in the worst possible manner. But then again, with the way the police force is run now, it would have been very difficult to haul a heavy and still conscious man out of the depot without anyone else noticing, still less heft him over the bastion.

If it did happen, we are talking about a major conspiracy of silence in the police force, and doubt nags at the back of my mind when I look at this rationally. Trust in the police force has improved, and with good reason. If this had happened 25 years ago, we would have had no doubt that the police did it, but things have changed, which makes me reluctant to rush to judgement. I have deep misgivings about the case either way.

The retired judge Albert Manche, who has been put in charge of the inquiry, is not one to be trifled with. He is a man to be trusted – though unfortunately, he will be handicapped by the fact that Magistrate Anthony Vella (the same one who banned publication of the name of the teacher who sent sexy text messages to his pupils, incidentally) didn’t see fit to record his death-bed questioning of Nicholas Azzopardi. Let’s hope he took notes at least.

My purpose here is to point out that this kind of bad thing only happens because our interrogation rules are those of a despotic regime, in which it is possible to beat and torture people at the police depot, or to put lies into their mouths, because there are no regulatory controls. The only controls we have now are entirely discretionary. They are based on good will.

I have written about this already: that it is appalling how the interrogation system the police use today remains entirely unchanged from the days when I and others were interrogated by Anglu Farrugia and his cronies in the 1980s. Those who are interrogated are not permitted even one telephone call to let their family know where they are. They just “disappear” for the next 48 hours. They are not permitted legal counsel. They are not even permitted to telephone their lawyer. They are not told their rights, because quite frankly, they haven’t any. They are left floundering, quizzed in an unequal battle of wits between experienced detectives and those who have never been in such a situation before. Hardened criminals know how to handle things, but what of the rest?

I can well remember my own experience with Anglu Farrugia, which I have written about before, but it bears repeating, if only to annoy him: forced to sign a falsified confession which he typed while putting words in my mouth, after keeping me in total darkness for 27 hours, in a tiny cell with what smelled like excrement on the walls, with no water, and just one filthy sandwich, no access to a lawyer and no contact with anyone outside that notorious high gate.

Because I was a bit sharper than the average 19-year-old, certainly sharper than Farrugia, in any case, I used my boring time in that cell to work out a plan of action. I would let him write whatever he wanted to in my ‘statement’. I would agree to everything he said, even GBH on a policeman twice my size. Then I would sign the statement so that he would allow me to leave, and kick up a major fuss about it in court.

I knew that forced confessions didn’t count for zilch and that the whole thing would rebound on him, which it did. It is still rebounding on him today. Not everyone knows this, and it is not always possible to think clearly under such duress. I remember being very, very calm and thinking very, very clearly – but then I have broken down and flipped out in much less stressful situations. Heaven help anyone who flips out in a police interrogation, and not because of physical violence, either – but because if you say something ill-advised, you can end up with serious problems.

I find it incredible that in this day and age, when we are supposedly civilised, we continue to allow a situation in which people who are questioned by the police under detention have no access to a lawyer, and that the questioning is neither recorded, nor videotaped, nor even conducted in a room with a viewing-chamber or viewing- window that exposes the proceedings to authorised persons.

Please explain to me how it can be considered in any way safe or risk-free or even advisable to put a detained person in a closed room with police officers who are questioning him or her, with no scrutiny and no record of what is said or done. It is a recipe for disaster, a giant problem waiting to happen. And now it has happened. A man is dead and the police are being blamed for it. It is because our interrogation procedures have not kept pace with those of the civilised world that this has occurred. If Nicholas Azzopardi’s interrogation had been conducted formally, audiotaped, videotaped, scrutinised and with his lawyer present, then none of this would have happened. But when you interrogate somebody as though you are operating in Zimbabwe, calling him in and then causing him to disappear into a secluded room with police officers, you are asking for trouble. And when you ask for trouble, you usually get it.

We are so accustomed to watching British detective series on the television that we imagine this is the way interrogations are conducted in Malta. Two police officers sit across the table from you, and your lawyer sits by your side. A tape recorder sits on the table and the interrogating officer speaks the time into it and takes note of whoever leaves or enters the room, or any other physical movement that is untoward. The lawyer advises his client whether to answer or not answer certain questions. I have been told that one of the first things that people do when called in for questioning at our Police Depot is to ask for their lawyer, only to be met with a raised eyebrow. They assume, because of all their watching of detective films, that they have a right to a lawyer while under interrogation. Well, here’s some news for you: you have no more right to a lawyer now than you did in Police Commissioner Lorry Pullicino’s day. Nothing has changed since then.

My favourite government minister Tonio Borg had promised to do something about this when he was Justice Minister. Instead, he dedicated the time to writing to floral clubs and ju-jitsu associations, using his power of incumbency to get them to support Paul Vincenti’s whacko petition to have the fact that Malta is against abortion slotted into our Constitution. That was more important than making sure that people are never put into a position where they are immediately vulnerable to beatings and abuse by any interrogating officer who may be so inclined.

None of Tonio Borg’s predecessors in the justice ministry did anything about it, either. Now, with this case, we have reached the point of no return. Something has to be done about it. Even if it turns out that Nicholas Azzopardi died as a result of trying to escape rather than because of a police beating, this case should teach Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, Borg’s successor, and the police commissioner that we cannot afford to let this state of affairs go on.

We need the British system of controlled and monitored police interrogation, and we need it now. The police say that it hinders their objectives. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? But nothing hinders your objectives more than a national scandal in which a man dies after claiming grievous bodily harm by the police.