Who will protect us? A statement on the acquittal in the Lassana Cisse murder trial
By African Media Association Malta,
On 6 April 2019, Lassana Cisse Souleymane, a 42-year-old Ivorian father of two, was shot dead while walking home in Malta. Two other African men were shot and injured that same evening. Lassana did not know his attackers. He had done nothing to provoke them. When two soldiers from the Armed Forces of Malta were arrested weeks later, the country was confronted with the possibility that a man had been killed simply because he was Black.
The shock was profound. Malta's political leaders condemned the killing. Then Prime Minister Joseph Muscat declared that hatred and division had no place in Maltese society and insisted that Malta should remain safe for everyone. President George Vella warned against racist and xenophobic discourse. Opposition leaders, civil society organisations and religious authorities expressed their outrage.
There were calls for justice, promises of vigilance and appeals for a society where everyone could live safely, regardless of nationality or skin colour.
For Black people living in Malta, however, It was a terrifying reminder that the colour of our skin could make us targets of violence.
Seven years later, that fear has returned.
On 1 November 2026, a jury acquitted former soldier Lorin Scicluna of Lassana Cisse's murder and the attempted murders of three other African men. He was convicted of grievously injuring one of them and driving without registration plates.
We recognise the independence of the judiciary and respect the principle that guilt must be proven beyond reasonable doubt. We also recognise that separate proceedings against Francesco Fenech remain pending. But we cannot ignore what was heard during the trial.
Scicluna himself admitted that he and his companions used to drive around Hal Far looking for Black people to harass. The court heard about a pattern of intimidation and violence targeting people who had done nothing to them. These admissions are profoundly disturbing. We are not speaking about an abstract fear of racism. We are speaking about Black people being deliberately targeted because they are Black.
And today, we are asking the same question that haunted many of us in 2019: Who will protect us? This is not a hypothetical concern. It is a reality that Black communities have been confronting for years. And this case raises questions that go far beyond the verdict.
What happened to the promises made in 2019?
Following Lassana Cisse's murder, the authorities announced measures intended to respond to racist violence and reassure communities. In October 2019, a dedicated Hate Crime and Speech Unit was established to support victims of racially motivated crimes and other forms of hatred.
One of our members was directly involved in supporting the survivors of the attacks, accompanying Mohammed Jallow, Ibrahim Bah and May Malimi to the unit in Valletta as they sought assistance and gave their accounts.
We remember their experiences. We remember the fear surrounding this case and the hope that these new institutional measures represented. The unit was subsequently absorbed into the Victim Support Agency. In its 2026 report on Malta, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance expressed concern that the reorganisation had removed the unit's explicit responsibility for collecting hate-crime data. It recommended restoring a dedicated mechanism and regularly publishing such information.
We are therefore entitled to ask: what has changed for victims of racist violence since 2019? Are the mechanisms established to protect them effective, accessible and trusted by the communities they were created to serve?
An Armed Forces inquiry that the public has never seen
In May 2019, the Armed Forces of Malta also launched an internal inquiry to determine whether the alleged conduct of the two soldiers reflected a wider problem of racism within the military.
In 2020, the Ministry for Home Affairs announced that the inquiry, based on interviews with nearly 300 AFM personnel, had found no evidence of racial hatred or intolerance within the force. Yet the full report was not made public.
The inquiry nevertheless recommended additional screening, education and specialised training to help identify racist attitudes and discriminatory behaviour. Six years after those findings were reported, we believe it is reasonable to ask whether these recommendations were fully implemented, what monitoring followed and why the report has never been made available for public scrutiny.
These questions are particularly important following the admissions made during Scicluna's trial about deliberately harassing Black people.
Who will protect us?
We ask this question not out of hostility towards Malta or its institutions, but because we live here. We are workers, students, parents, children, neighbours and members of Maltese society. We contribute to this country. We build families here. Some of us were born here. Others have made Malta their home.
Yet the killing of Lassana Cisse remains a reminder of how vulnerable we can be when racial hatred turns into violence. Who protects the Black worker returning home after a late shift? The Black student walking alone at night? The Black woman waiting at a bus stop? The Black child growing up in a country that is also their home?
What assurances can the authorities offer us that racial hatred will never again be allowed to escalate into such violence? We cannot accept a society in which Black people must constantly calculate whether a street is safe to walk on, whether an encounter might turn violent, or whether the colour of their skin makes them vulnerable.
We are not asking for special protection. We are asking for the same protection, dignity and security that every other person in Malta is entitled to expect.
The verdict has been delivered, but the questions raised by Lassana Cisse's killing remain.
We call on Malta's political leaders, law enforcement institutions and public authorities to recognise the fear that this case has generated, to address racist violence with seriousness and transparency, and to demonstrate through concrete action that Black lives are equally worthy of protection.
We also call for continued attention to the remaining judicial proceedings and for the memory of Lassana Cisse not to disappear from public consciousness.
In 2019, Malta's leaders promised that hatred had no place in this country. Today, we ask what has been done to turn those words into reality. Lassana Cisse was a human being. A father. A member of our community. His death must never become just another closed chapter in Malta's history.
We are Black, as God made us to be. Proudly Black. We live here. We belong here. And we have the right to live without fear.
Endorsements
Aditus Foundation
Blue Door Education
Church Homes for the Elderly
Dance Beyond Borders
Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation
Davinia Galea - ARC Research & Consultancy
Fondazzjoni Sebh
Gabriel Caruana Foundation
Holger Suarez, Visiting senior lecturer University of Malta
Institute of Maltese Journalists (IĠM)
Kenyans in Malta
Kopin
LGBTI+ Gozo
Maltese Association of Social Workers (MASW)
Migrant Women Association Malta
Malta Gay Rights Mouvement
Moviment Graffitti
Nazlee Mayhew, Zimbabwean
Prof. Andrew Azzopardi, Department of Youth, Community and Migration Studies University of Malta
Prof. Colin Calleja - Dean Faculty of Education
Repubblika
Solidarjeta
SOS Malta
Spark 15
The Department of Youth, Community and Migration Studies, University of Malta
The Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Malta
The Migrants Commission of the Archdiocese of Malta
The Paulo Freire Institute Foundation
Unfinished Art Space
Women's Rights Foundation
Young Progressive Beings Malta
Comments