Union president ‘doesn’t know where to draw the line’

Police Commissioner Michael Cassar insisted that the police did well to await the findings of a National Audit report before they themselves started investigating the expropriation of half a house by Marco Gaffarena. 

Police on Thursday swooped on the Lands Department’s offices to commence their investigations into the expropriation, and Cassar insisted on Radju Malta’s Ghandi Xi Nghid that “every relevant file is now under lock and key”.  

Questioned by host Andrew Azzopardi as to why he didn’t order a parallel investigation when the controversy first erupted several months ago, Cassar admitted that the Auditor General had better resources at his disposal than the police to investigate potential economic crimes. 

“It would be presumptuous of me to claim that the police economic crimes unit is better equipped than the National Audit Office or the Internal Audit and Investigations Department (IAID) to investigate economic crimes,” he said. 

Cassar warned that the economic crimes unit is under-staffed, manned by a mere five police officers, despite economic crime “being the most prevalent type of crime”. 

“Economic crime investigations are complex and voluminous, and officers sometimes must read up to 50,000 documents for one case alone, which is no joke for such a small staff. Moreover, they must continuously deal with all the new cases that pour in.”  

As such, he said he plans to add four more police officers to the ECU as soon as they complete their university courses at the end of the month. Such recruitments would be over and above the accountants, auditors and other non-police professionals that the unit would employ according to a budgetary measure. 

Cassar insisted that the ECU must treat with equal importance cases of fraud – regardless of the amounts of money involved. 

“In the United Kingdom, police won’t even look at a report on fraud if the money involved is under €5,000,” he said. “However, it’s my policy to treat cases of alleged fraud with equivalent importance – whether it’s €10 million or €1,000.” 

Union boss crosses line

Cassar defended the police force’s decision to prosecute officers for allegedly injuring a 12-year-old boy while stopping him during one of his notorious joyrides in Hamrun. 

“I can assure you that investigations [in this case] took place as they were meant to,” he said. “Before the police decide to charge anyone in court, we are legally obliged to present our evidence to the Attorney General, who then gives us directions on how to proceed.”

Police Officers’ Union president Sandro Camilleri has harshly criticised the decision to prosecute the officers as “ridiculous” and insists that the young joyrider sustained his injuries by knocking his head against the steering wheel or on some other part of the car. 

“If the police officers really beat up the boy the first time, then why would he have gone out joyriding only three days later?” he questioned. 

However, Cassar warned that Camilleri “spoke out of line” by jumping to the defence of the accused officers. 

“With all due respect, Camilleri’s duty is to focus on trade union issues, and perhaps he doesn’t yet know when he has crossed the line. Police unionism is still a relatively new concept.”

When put to him by Azzopardi that Camilleri was protecting the interests of police officers, Cassar retorted that “if there’s anybody out there who defends the interests of police officers it’s myself”.  

‘Youth workers in Paceville unlikely to make a difference’ 

Andrew Azzopardi – a youth studies lecturer – proposed on his show that youth workers be deployed at every Paceville nightclub, tasked with trying to cool down arguments before requesting police assistance if the situation gets out of control.

However, the police commissioner quickly shot down this proposal.

“If the police are deployed in Paceville to stop fights, then it’s better that they get involved from the start,” he said. “Besides, it is highly unlikely that youth workers would be able to calm down fighters; these often don’t even calm down when they see the police approaching.”

He said that police have been deploying 30 officers to Paceville every Friday and Saturday night since the PlusOne tragedy, that brutally exposed the long-standing problem of underage clubbers.

The 30 officers – over and above the CID and drug squad deployed to the area – are rotated every weekend. 

“Every night, we like to deploy a mix of seasoned police officers who have long experience of Paceville, with younger officers,” he said. 

However, he insisted that the police should not be considered responsible for every tragedy that occurs, using the PlusOne incident as an example. 

“Police aren’t health and safety experts and shouldn’t be held responsible for the security of nightclubs, although of course they are duty-bound to take action if they notice flaws within it,” he said. “Whenever a nightclub, café or shop applies for a licence, every relevant department must first check that everything is in order and then leave it up to the police to ensure that order is kept. That’s how harmony should work.”