Former acting police commissioner Ray Zammit should be removed from all public posts following a damning inquiry that exposed shady business links, the Nationalist Party said.
PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami said the government should remove Mr Zammit from acting prisons director and CEO of the newly-created wardens’ agency.
Reacting to the findings of an inquiry by former judge Michael Mallia, which exposed shady links between the police and business, Dr Fenech Adami said the Prime Minister had to shoulder political responsibility.
“With immediate effect, the government must publish all information and correspondence 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; who boarded out former inspector Daniel Zammit in four days and immediately employed him at Enemalta.”
He said it was unacceptable that 24 hours after the Zammit family’s ties to shady characters was exposed, the Home Affairs Minister remained silent.
Dr Fenech Adami went a step further and 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 a 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. “Had we known, we would have acted immediately,” he said.
Dr Fenech Adami had served as parliamentary assistant in the home affairs ministry between 2010 and 2013.
In a short statement rebutting the accusations, the Office of the Prime Minister reminded the PN that the cases tackled by the inquiry happened under the previous administration.
“This government will undertake the necessary reforms,” the statement said.