It took 14 deaths and countless stories of extremist practices for Alex Dalli to finally step aside as the Corradino prison chief.

The latest of those deaths – the suicide of an Indian national named Arun Jose – came this week, and heralded renewed questions on what exactly is going on in Corradino.

Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri keeps saying that “most” of the deaths that took place in prison during the past three years were natural causes. He says the inquiries that took place after each that have confirmed this. But we are never given an actual number of how many were natural deaths and how many were suicides. Why is this?

This is also not only about deaths. It is also about claims of extreme disciplinarian tactics, of claims that Dalli walked around the prison with a gun (occasionally shooting at pigeons), of inmates and warders being mistreated, of an admission that a punishment chair was used.

It is about various accounts of physical and psychological abuses taking place at Corradino, about a culture of fear, about a situation so depressing that people have preferred ending their own life rather than enduring another day in that place.

But for whatever reason, it seems that this government is hell-bent on protecting Dalli.  All we need to do to confirm that is to see the reaction that there was to the multiple stories about the situation inside the prison’s walls quoting former inmates.

First, we had the Labour Party’s own television station “exposing” the identity of an anonymous inmate who spoke to PN media house NET Television about the situation at Corradino – only to “expose” the wrong person.  That didn’t deter them naturally, because the story remained uncorrected on their website for the party faithful to read.

We then had L-Orizzont – an allegedly independent newspaper – conveniently publishing dirt on another former inmate who spoke to the Times of Malta about the situation in prison leading up to another suicide – that of the inmate Colin Galea.

News flash: a story like that isn’t journalism – it’s called being a state shill.

It absolutely shouldn’t have taken this long for some action against Dalli to be taken.  And even now that action finally has come and Dalli has moved out of his post – the nature of that action leaves a lot to be desired.

We say this because Alex Dalli only “suspended himself” from his post, and his replacement has been described as an acting one.

So in the face of what has happened during Dalli’s tenure – why is it that Byron Camilleri did not have the conviction to take a decision himself? Why did it take him this long?  Why has the government been protecting a clear megalomaniac? Dalli’s self-suspension is now not enough.

Did Camilleri even ask Dalli to resign? He refused to say, when asked by journalists. And he kept insisting that he “acts on facts.”

But if he still didn’t ask Dalli to step down after this latest inmate suicide, then Camilleri is truly a weak minister who refuses to take decisions. In fact, the time has probably come for a decision to be taken by the Prime Minister not just on Dalli, but also on Camilleri himself for his lack of action.