The police force has been one of the entities which has been under the microscope the most in the last decade.

We had years under the Joseph Muscat administration where police commissioners were cycled through on an almost annual basis, and after years of many firmly believing – and with good reason – that the force was under pressure not to investigate allegations of criminality at the very top of Malta’s government.

The appointment of Angelo Gafa as the new Police Commissioner after Robert Abela took over the reins as Prime Minister was met with positive reactions, with many acknowledging that Gafa is a no-nonsense individual who wouldn’t take kindly to any undue intervention in the work of the force.

Indeed, for quite a few months, Gafa’s leadership of the force did seem to spur on certain higher-profile investigations and it appeared that he was definitely walking the talk.  These efforts drew quite some praise, including from this newspaper, and it actually did seem like the police’s reputation was finally starting to rise from the mud it had found itself in.

However, the past two weeks have seen cases which have brought unfortunate reminders of the past years.

The first of those cases is that of Ryan Schembri. The owner of the defunct More supermarket chain was extradited from Scotland and brought to Malta in April to face charges of fraud and money laundering estimated to be in the tens of millions of euros.

On the face of it, this is a good piece of work to bring someone who has evaded justice for a number of years back to Malta to face charges.  However, it emerged in court later that the police dragged their feet on Schembri since 2014 even though they knew that the man had fled the island and had taken up residence in the United Kingdom.

It led to questions: why did the police take no action for over eight years?  Why did it take this long for Schembri to be properly investigated, arrested, and extradited to Malta?

The second of these cases is an altogether worse one, and is very much the flavour of the current news headlines.

It concerns Iosif Galea. Gaming consultant Galea, who used to work for the Malta Gaming Authority, was recently arrested in Italy over a German European Arrest Warrant linked to a tax investigation. A separate European Arrest Warrant was issued by the Maltese Authorities and is suspected of conspiracy together with leaking MGA insider information.

The German European Arrest Warrant came after a tax investigation required the then head of the gaming authority Iosif Galea to answer questions and after failing to be arrested in Malta, he was arrested between the 14 and 15 May after going on a vacation to Italy.

The issue here however is that the German Arrest Warrant has been pending for over a year, and that despite this, Galea was allowed to travel in and out of Malta in an unfettered manner.

It is a severe shortcoming – and indeed a severe security risk – by the Police to allow a man who is wanted in another country to travel in and out of Malta while seemingly facing no problems whatsoever.

It leads one to wonder: is an eye being closed to other people who are on country’s wanted lists?

It’s a grave question to be asking.

Unfortunately these two instances have put a heavy damper on any progress that has been made in improving the police’s reputation.  We hope that investigations into the matters at hand now are concluded quickly and are published in full, so that any shortcomings are rectified.