The Correctional Services Agency “incorrectly” paid the court and legal expenses of its former director Alex Dalli in a number of libel cases which he lost against local newspapers.

This was revealed in Parliament by Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri in response to a question posted by PN MP Mark Anthony Sammut.

Sammut asked whether there were any legal expenses in relation to libel cases that Dalli had lost which had been paid by the government or the CSA.

Dalli lost a number of libel cases he filed against MaltaToday and its sister newspaper Illum over reports of his mistreatments of prisoners while he headed the CSA.

The reports in question focused amongst other things on the use of a restraint chair to humiliate an inmate and on a claim by a former official that Dalli had put a firearm to the mouth of a misbehaving prisoner and threatened to shoot him.

Dalli filed libel suits in relation to the stories, but both were thrown out by a Court which ruled that the assertions were substantially correct and not the result of irresponsible journalism.

Camilleri told Parliament that libel cases are a personal matter and expenses related to them should be paid by the person who opens them.

“I am informed that where there were expenses which were incorrectly paid by the [CSA], these were refunded,” Camilleri said.

Sammut also asked whether Dalli still occupies his post in Libya or any other governmental posts, but Camilleri did not answer.

Dalli – who is a retired army colonel – stepped down as the head of the CSA in November 2021 after a string of inmates committed suicide while in prison under his watch.

He was made the government’s especial migration envoy in Libya and tasked with coordinating action with Libyan authorities to prevent human smuggling operations a month after his resignation.