The setting up of a new anti-organised crime commission is being raised at the highest levels, with Cabinet having briefly discussed it and the Democratic Party about to propose it to Parliament.

Cabinet sources said the idea of creating an independent investigative body to tackle the spread of organised crime had been floated during one of the weekly Cabinet meetings in the wake of the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

It had again been raised in some circles, the sources said, after the arrest of the three men accused of carrying out the car bomb assassination in October 2017. 

However it was not pressed too hard, with one source saying there was a fear of it being viewed as “a poorly thought-out knee-jerk reaction”.  

Another source said there was “no political backing” for the idea among certain members of Cabinet, with one member saying it could have been seen as a vote of no-confidence in the police. 

“A comprehensive approach to tackling organised crime could be a positive step towards tackling this very sensitive and complex issue. After all, organised crime is a problem the world over,” one source in favour of the proposal said.  

“Some countries, including our neighbours Italy, have reacted to this problem and introduced a robust framework to wage a war on organised crime. Has it solved the problem? No. But it has also had results and has shown that governments won’t take this issue lying down.”

It turns out that Castille’s decision to hold off on a discussion on such a body, however, does not mean there will be no national debate on the matter. 

Democratic Party leader Godfrey Farrugia told The Sunday Times of Malta that in the coming days, his party would be presenting a motion in Parliament for the setting up of just such a commission.  

The motion will call for the setting up of an independent body tasked with investigating corruption and organised crime, based on other models used internationally. 

“I have remained in politics because the system is sick and I can’t let it go on like this. I want to break this system once and for all – we need to do so, for the sake of the future of this country,” Dr Farrugia said.

I can’t let it go on like this

Meanwhile, the government and Cabinet sources in favour of such a commission said they did not think this was on the cards any time soon.

However, if it were, they believe that for it to be truly effective it would have to be independent of the government and free to investigate any potential links between State officials and the criminal underworld.

Drawing on Italy as a benchmark, sources said the Italian Anti-Mafia Commission was a good model to emulate. 

The commission of the Italian Parliament is composed of members from the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate and was first set up in 1963 to investigate the Sicilian Mafia.

Subsequent commissions expanded their scope to investigate all Mafia type organised crime, which included other major criminal organisations in Italy such as the Camorra and the ‘Ndrangheta among others.

The commission has judicial powers in that it may instruct the judicial police to carry out investigations, it can ask for copies of court proceedings, and is entitled to request any form of collaboration that it deems necessary. 

Last year the chair of the current Italian Anti-Mafia Commission had said she was not convinced that Malta has been doing its utmost to fight money laundering and organised crime.

Italian Democratic Party Senator Rosy Bindi had said during a two-day mission to the island that Malta’s economic foundations were too heavily based on financial services and remote gaming, making it attractive to mafia operators who wanted to use the island for criminal activity including money laundering. 

She also said the Italian commission wanted to see a major effort by the Maltese government to try to close legal loopholes which could be exploited by Italian crime syndicates.

A senior police investigator said the possibility of such a body – with a similar legal status as the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit, had been discussed by the police top brass and the government during the 2008-2013 administration. 

And more recently sources said that in 2017 both the financial services watchdog and the gaming authority had raised concerns with policy makers over a lack of collaboration between anti-Mafia authorities in Italy and other Member States, the Malta police and regulators, which they said weakened the fight against organised crime.

‘Malta must tackle organised crime’

The Democratic Party will this week be calling on Parliament to discuss the setting up of an internationally-led body focused on combating organised crime and its influence in Maltese public life.

“It is imperative that Malta actively tackles organised crime. The reported collaboration between the Maltese underworld, Libyan militia and Sicilian mafia is of particular concern and must stop.” Godfrey Farrugia, PD’s new leader, told The Sunday Times of Malta.

The party, which holds two parliamentary seats, is proposing the setting up of a new independent body that would be sufficiently resourced to track down and prosecute those involved in organised crime, whether directly or indirectly.

The entity Dr Farrugia envisages could be based on models of international commissions which investigate corruption and organised crime in some states following concerns of a collapse of rule of law. 

Dr Farrugia said the commission he hoped to see set up in Malta would require independent oversight from an international body and have special jurisdiction over problem areas such as Hurd’s Bank – linked to fuel and narcotics trafficking, and work in collaboration with Maltese authorities to investigate matters related to smuggling, embezzlement, the Daphne Project revelations and the Caruana Galizia murder investigation. 

Fuel smuggling, Dr Farrugia said, is of particular concern, due to the reported size of the market for smuggled Libyan fuel and the alleged links between Libyan militia, Maltese organised crime and the Italian Mafia.

Read: 'Malta has become a crossroad of illegal trafficking' – Italian police

Italian authorities arrested Maltese nationals Gordon Debono and Darren Debono [not related] in 2017 on fuel smuggling charges alongside their Libyan and Sicilian partners. 

Dr Farrugia said that despite this, a UN Panel of Experts had noted in its latest report that fuel smuggling on the stretch of sea between Malta, Tunisia and Libya resumed as early as January 2018.

“Who are these people? How are they acting? Who is supporting them?” Dr Farrugia asked, noting that the Daphne Project had recently reported that alleged smugglers were acting from central areas in Malta, such as Grand Harbour.

The proposal is the second presented by PD in four months aimed at strengthening good governance in Malta. Earlier this year, the party presented proposals for the establishment of a Parliamentary Permanent Committee to scrutinise the work of the gaming and financial regulators in Malta, alongside the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit.