It has been known for quite a long time that the current police commissioner, Lawrence Cutajar, is unfit for the post that he holds, and so were a number of his predecessors.

Tuesday’s court testimony by John Rizzo, however, confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt how political appointments made by this administration in the police force have resulted in the perversion of justice.

The former police commissioner said, during a sitting of the public inquiry into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, that he would have investigated the Panama Papers scandal and the leaked FIAU reports “right away.”

Rizzo also told the presiding judges that he had immediately launched an investigation into the oil scandal, and that then Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had praised him for launching the probe.

He also said that he had had enough evidence to take former European Commissioner John Dalli to court but was replaced before he could do so.

Unlike his successors, Rizzo declared that he had enjoyed “complete liberty” to perform his duties and said that serious allegations of crime or misconduct were immediately investigated.

Shortly after winning the 2013 election, Labour removed the respected veteran officer from his post, and replaced him with Peter Paul Zammit, who immediately declared that there was insufficient evidence to proceed against Dalli.

Rizzo told the court how he had agreed with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to take up a role at the Malta Security Service but then Keith Schembri stepped in. The disgraced former chief of staff, it seems, had other plans for him and instead sent him to head the Civil Protection Department. One wonders whether this was an intentional move – to keep the keen investigator from heading a sensitive department that is best placed to solve serious crimes. Where, so to speak, he could do more ‘damage’ to the administration.

In another reference to the MSS, Rizzo said that neither the Prime Minister nor any other minister would attend security briefings during his tenure. This is a very different story to what happened over the past two years, when the PM and a number of other ministers and, more importantly, Keith Schembri sat for MSS briefings. This at a time when the MSS was keeping Schembri’s friend, Yorgen Fenech, under surveillance, and in a case in which Schembri himself has been implicated.

What Rizzo said jars heavily with the comportment of his three successors, all of whom failed to take immediate action (in many cases, they did not take action at all) on several high-profile cases.

By far, the commissioner that failed most miserably at his job is the incumbent, Lawrence Cutajar. Under his watch, the police force failed to investigate the FIAU reports, he made a mess out of the entire Pilatus Bank saga and totally overlooked the Panama Papers revelations. Furthermore, Keith Schembri made a mockery out of the force after claiming he had lost the mobile phone he used to speak to Yorgen Fenech the day before the latter tried to flee the country. And he has not answered for the fact that the police only searched Schembri’s Castille office ten full days after Schembri’s arrest.

The last serious police commissioner was John Rizzo, but he was conveniently removed from his post for the simple reason, it seems, that he was a good investigator and would have uncovered things that the government wanted to remain hidden. 

Since Rizzo’s departure, the reputation of the leadership of the police force has continued to suffer, which is so unfair on the hundreds of diligent officers who have to serve under these political appointees.