WATCH: ‘Many Police Officers Told Me They Feel Humiliated By Force Under Angelo Gafa’, Repubblika Head Warns
Repubblika president Robert Aquilina has warned that several police officers have told him privately that they feel humiliated at the way police commissioner Angelo Gafa’ is running the force.
“Many officers have told me they feel humiliated at the way the police force is being run,” Aquilina told Lovin Malta. “They feel humiliated and cannot stand how the police regained a bad reputation of not doing their job and of letting impunity reign.”
“They can’t speak to me over here [at the depot] but I have many, many conversations with police officers.”
Repubblika are currently staging a 72-hour camp protest outside the Floriana depot to pressure the police to arrest former minister Konrad Mizzi and charge him with corruption-related offences.
A protest has been scheduled for Friday evening at Castille Square.
Aquilina said Repubblika had intentionally held back from criticising Gafa’ after his appointment as police commissioner last year and even had a private meeting with him.
“What we spoke about must remain confidential, but we gave him the benefit of the doubt,” he said. “We didn’t even say that Joseph Muscat had appointed him as CEO of the police force four years ago, a position that was apparently created specifically for him.”
“However, our hope in him has been constantly declining since then.”
“His face is on our banner because it’s evident that the humiliation Konrad Mizzi is imposing on the people of Malta can only take place because Angelo Gafa’ isn’t prosecuting him and because Robert Abela isn’t distancing himself from Joseph Muscat or explaining why he kicked Konrad Mizzi out of the PL parliamentary group.”
He added that he heard through the grapevine that the current protest is irritating Gafa’.
Aquilina dismissed suggestions that the police may be building up a strong case against Mizzi behind closed doors, arguing that he can only see “total apathy and a lack of will to proceed on corruption cases”.
In fact, he claimed police only pressed charges against Pilatus Bank and former European Commissioner John Dalli because Repubblika had pressured them to.
“I don’t believe the police are building a strong case against Konrad Mizzi, I don’t believe they’re doing anything about him.”
Aquilina harked back to the 2019 mass protests that were triggered by Yorgen Fenech over the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
“Around 25,000 people had attended those protests,” he said, before urging those same people to attend the Friday protest.
“I urge you to have courage. I’m sure you agree with what we’re saying now and that Konrad Mizzi has a case to answer for on corruption. We’re able to bring about radical change as we had done two years ago.”
Will you attend the protest on Friday?
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