Somali is freed after five years without conviction

Osman Omar is overwhelmed at the prospect that he could see his eight-year-old son outside prison walls after spending five years behind bars for a crime he insists he never committed and for which he has not been convicted.

“I’m still asking myself if it is possible after all this suffering,” the Somali told The Sunday Times from the Corradino Correctional Facility.

The 31-year-old Somali became embroiled in a lurid case of gang rape, which allegedly took place near the Marsa Open Centre in March 2007.

He was charged, along with another two Somalis and a Sudanese man, of complicity in rape but he has protested his innocence all along.

“If anything, I got drawn into this mess because I was trying to stop them and I later told police who had raped the woman.”

In the first three years of the case Mr Omar was denied bail but when he was finally granted it in 2009, it was attached to a bail bond of €6,000 which was beyond his means.

Requests were made by his legal aid lawyer over the years for the bond to be reduced but they were all were denied.

His case has now been taken over by lawyer Franco Debono who last week obtained a concession from the courts for the bail bond to be reduced from €6,000 to €4,000.

It is still beyond his reach but thanks to British benefactors he is likely to leave jail in the next few days.

“I cannot explain to you how I feel,” he told this newspaper, moments after finding out that bail might be posted for him by friends.

“My son sometimes tells me how hard it is for him not to have a father and I despair.”

Over the past five years he has tried to commit suicide twice, but when his former lawyer suggested that he should file a guilty plea to get it over and done with, he refused, despite being tempted by the idea.

“I thought about it, but I cannot plead guilty to something I didn’t do… Had I really had a part in this rape, I wouldn’t feel so desperate… wasting away here for nothing is killing me… but I cannot own up to something I didn’t do,” he said in fluent Maltese.

Filing a guilty plea some months ago would have likely meant he would have left prison already.

The prosecution is asking for a jail term of between four and 12 years, which, lawyers told The Sunday Times, would likely translate into a seven-year jail term if he were to file a guilty plea.

With Corradino’s system of early release for good behaviour, this means that he would serve around five years, which means he would have left, or be approaching the end of his term.

Mr Omar has protested his innocence since day one and insisted with officers, even in his statement, that he was prepared to give blood and semen samples to prove he had nothing to do with the crime.

The samples were taken and proved negative, unlike with two of the co-accused, whose semen was found on the victim.

The only evidence that ever connected Mr Omar to the case, was the testimony of the victim’s friend, Hakim Babangita from Togo, who said that at one point he had seen Omar carry the woman.

Mr Babangita had invited the victim to sleep in his dorm bed at the Marsa Open Centre that night because she got drunk at the nearby Tiger Bar in Marsa, and had attracted the attention of several men there.

Once in the dorm, Mr Babangita told the court, the situation turned ugly and a group of three men approached her with the clear intention of taking advantage of her sexually.

The story told by the victim – who acknowledged she was severely drunk throughout the ordeal – loosely corroborated that of her friend but none of them placed Mr Omar at the scene of the rape. On the contrary. When asked in court, Mr Babangita specifically excluded Mr Omar from the scene of the rape.

“I explained this over and over,” Mr Omar said. “I simply tried to stop the others turning on her. I got involved because I heard the commotion in the dorm and realised immediately what was going to happen.”

At one point, he said, he tried to take her away from them but they got hold of her again and one of them had a knife – a fact corroborated by Mr Babangita – so I let go. But I had absolutely nothing to do with this.”

When the police came round, Mr Omar helped identify the suspects but then ended up being arrested when one of them claimed he was with them.

“I knew this would happen. The lesson I have learnt from this is to keep my mouth shut next time.”

 timesofmalta.com