The government officially announced this evening that Police Commissioner Peter Paul Zammit has stepped down and will assume an administrative role as coordinator for security in national events.

It said the decision was by mutual agreement

Deputy Police Commissioner Ray Zammit has been appointed Acting Commissioner while a reorganisation across various levels of the police force is carried out.

The outgoing commissioner was the shortest serving Commissioner in recent years having been appointed shortly after Labour was elected to power in April 2013.

Ray Zammit, a relative of Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia, was appointed deputy commissioner in charge of districts last January. Last year, he was also given temporary responsibility for the prisons when the resignation of former prison director Abraham Zammit was accepted.

Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia will make a statement on the changes on Wednesday, the government said.

PN REACTION

In a reaction, the Nationalist Party conveyed its best wishes to the new Acting Commissioner and said it hoped that he would not tolerate political interference as, it said, his predecessor had done.

The party noted that Peter Paul Zammit had resigned after it was revealed yesterday that he had not cooperated in an Olaf investigation, in a clear breach of European law.

This meant, the PN said, that Dr Zammit had shouldered his responsibility. However political responsibility also needed to be shouldered by the Prime Minister, who had appointed him.

The PN augured that the new Acting Commissioner would honour government promises to address the growing crime rate, that the police would be paid the promised compensation for overtime, that police stations in small localities would not be closed down and that income for extra duty would be taxed at a different rate.   

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See comments by Deputy Commissioner Zammit, given before his new appointment was announced.

 

 

 

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