Policeman who made disparaging comments against MP ‘requests transfer’

Sergeant major Eugenio Caruana has requested to be transferred from his post at parliament after the opposition insisted that he should be removed.

Caruana was recently deployed to parliament duty, until the opposition requested his removal. Caruana had made disparaging comments against shadow health minister Claudette Buttigieg on Facebook and was later found to have passed other comments against other MPs.

But while the opposition called for his removal, Speaker Anglu Farrugia and acting police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar argued that no further action would be taken against the policeman after the latter formally apologized for his actions and also closed down his Facebook account.

On Monday evening, Opposition leader Simon Busuttil threatened that the opposition would walk out of parliament until the policeman has been removed. In his ruling, the Speaker “deplored” Busuttil’s comments, arguing that the chair had always ensured the safety of all members of parliament. “As the MPs themselves can attest, security has increased drastically since we moved in the new parliamentary building and it’s fully handled by the police,” Farrugia said.

As the Speaker was reading out the ruling, he received fresh correspondence from the acting police commissioner informing him that Caruana had requested a transfer and this had been accepted.

Intervening, Busuttil said the Speaker’s ruling still left the opposition feel unsafe: “If he’s still here, we will walk out. We don’t feel protected by the Speaker and you [Farrugia] have a duty to ensure our protection,” Busuttil said.

The opposition was later reassured that Caruana was no longer posted to parliament.