(Adds government's reply)
The Nationalist Party has condemned the Home Affairs Minister’s “silence” on a damning inquiry that exposed links between the police and shady characters.
PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami said this afternoon the police force was facing a crisis that made people lose trust.
“It is unacceptable that 24 hours after former judge Michael Mallia’s report on the Zammit family’s ties to shady characters the Home Affairs Minister is silent,” he said.
In a two-line reply, the government said the Opposition should remember that the cases on which the inquiry was held took place when it was in government.
This government, it said, would be implementing the necessary reforms.
In view of the inquiry’s findings the PN is expecting the government to remove former acting police commissioner Ray Zammit from his current posts as head of a newly created warden agency and acting prisons director.
Dr Fenech Adami said the party expected the government to publish all information and correspondence linked to several decisions with possible implications on the inquiry findings. The PN is calling for information to be published on:
* the decision in June 2013 to transfer the Zammit brothers, Daniel and Roderick, to the Economic Crimes Unit;
* the decision to appoint Ray Zammit as head of the warden agency; and
* who boarded out former inspector Daniel Zammit in four days and immediately employed him at Enemalta.
Dr Fenech Adami said the report drew compromising links between Auberge de Castille [the Office of the Prime Minister], the police and criminality.
“The truth is that under a Labour government the Zammit and Gaffarena families were appeased on numerous occasions. The government has acted time and time again as if it is held ransom to these families.”
When it was pointed out that the Zammits’ business links and the compromised murder investigation went back to the PN’s time in government, Dr Fenech Adami said neither he nor the home affairs minister at the time were privy to the compromising ties.
The PN deputy leader had served as parliamentary assistant in the home affairs ministry between 2010 and 2013.
“Had we known, we would have acted immediately,” he said.