Lassana Cisse murder acquittal puts Malta's justice and racism record under scrutiny
A jury acquitted former soldier Lorin Scicluna of killing Lassana Cisse by eight votes to one, seven years after the shooting. The verdict has reignited debate over racism and judicial delays in Malta.
Seven years on, Cisse acquittal forces Malta to face hard questions
Lassana Cisse was 42 years old, a father of two, and walking home after watching a football match when he was shot dead on a road in Ħal Far. As Times of Malta reports, on 1 November — more than seven years after his killing — a jury acquitted former soldier Lorin Scicluna of his murder by eight votes to one.
Scicluna maintained throughout the trial that Francesco Fenech, who faces separate proceedings, had fired the shots. The jury accepted that guilt had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt.
The legal verdict, however, has not quieted the broader questions the case raises.
Writing in Times of Malta, freelance photographer and writer Stef Mizzi describes her reaction as "profound anger, sadness and dismay." The reporting of the trial, she argues, was deeply disturbing in what it revealed — not only about the killing itself, but about attitudes and conduct that preceded it.
Scicluna admitted to driving around Ħal Far with others to harass Black people. The court heard evidence of removed registration plates, mobile phones left behind, and conflicting accounts given to investigators. The prosecution argued that the evidence established criminal responsibility. The defence maintained that the threshold of proof beyond reasonable doubt had not been met.
Mizzi acknowledges that criminal convictions require proof beyond reasonable doubt and that an acquittal does not, by itself, establish that a judicial system has failed. She insists, however, that neither principle obliges citizens to remain silent when their confidence in the system is shaken. "Respect for the courts must allow room for scrutiny, criticism and demands for reform," she writes. "Otherwise, respect becomes an instruction to accept everything and question nothing."
Seven years, one family's suspended life
The length of time between Cisse's death and the verdict is itself a point of contention. His children have grown up without their father. His family has lived with that absence across a span that Mizzi argues should have drawn sustained public pressure for urgency — but largely did not.
"We discuss backlogs as administrative problems," she writes, "forgetting that behind each file are people whose lives remain suspended." A country cannot credibly claim to take justice seriously, she contends, while treating such delays as inevitable.
Her confidence in the Maltese judicial system, Mizzi says, has been "badly shaken." She calls for rigorous scrutiny of delays, the quality of investigations and prosecutions, and whether the jury system is adequate for the demands placed upon it, warning that institutional defensiveness will achieve nothing.
Racism described as a persistent failure
Beyond the courtroom, Mizzi identifies a parallel failure that she says the country must confront directly: racism.
Driving around to harass Black people, she argues, is an unambiguous denial of human dignity and should provoke unequivocal condemnation from across Maltese society. "Nobody should be made to feel that their skin colour turns an ordinary journey into a threat."
The case, in her view, exposes a gap between Malta's self-image as a compassionate country and the reality of contempt that she describes as having become "familiar background noise." Compassion, she argues, must hold its meaning when the person in need of protection is from elsewhere, speaks differently, or carries little social influence.
"Our national conscience cannot depend on whether we recognise ourselves in the victim," Mizzi writes.
A call for honesty rather than acceptance
Cisse deserved safety, dignity and a future, Mizzi argues. His family, she adds, deserves more than a brief surge of public sympathy before attention moves on.
"I do not want another tragedy reduced to a headline, another family's suffering absorbed into our weary acceptance that this is simply how things work," she writes. "I want a country that confronts its failures with honesty and urgency."
Lassana Cisse was walking home. The question Mizzi poses to her country is whether Malta is willing to honestly examine what happened — and why.
Stef Mizzi is a freelance photographer, writer and proofreader.
Source: Times of Malta