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Police Commissioner John Rizzo has refused to discuss his recommendation to remove Police Sergeant Joseph Mangion from the corps.
The disgraced officer, indicated as the man who dumped Nardu Debono’s corpse 25 years ago, continues to report for work despite the Commissioner’s recommendation for removal in the public interest.
Police sources have told MaltaToday that Mangion is still reporting to work at the Valletta police station.
When contacted, Rizzo declined to discuss the matter, saying that questions had to be sent to the Home Affairs Minister.
“Why don’t you ask the minister?” Rizzo said. “Haven’t you quoted him already?”
In fact Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg had confirmed to MaltaToday that Mangion was about to be removed after Rizzo’s recommendation to the Public Service Commission.
However, the sergeant will remain free of criminal prosecution for complicity in the brutal murder of Nardu Debono inside the police depot.
Even if he is dismissed from the corps, Mangion will still enjoy a full service pension.
“The Commissioner felt he (Mangion) had to be removed from the corps … that he didn’t deserve to be in the corps,” the minister said.
But when asked how Mangion was to be dismissed from the corps while at the same time remaining free from prosecution, Borg said: “As regards criminal proceedings, it depends because the level of proof is different. Removal from the Corps is a disciplinary procedure while criminal action requires proof beyond any reasonable doubt.”
Mangion was a key witness in the controversial trial by jury of former Police Commissioner Lawrence Pullicino, who was found guilty of complicity in the murder of Nardu Debono while the latter was under arrest.
Following Debono’s murder in 1980 the police fabricated a cover up, arguing that Debono had escaped from the depot.
During Pullicino’s trial Mangion testified that he had seen Debono walking in Hal Qormi but other officers had testified they had seen Mangion carrying Debono on his shoulders and throwing him in the luggage booth of the car of the former commissioner. According to evidence given in Pullicino’s case, Mangion then dumped Debono in Wied ic-Cawsli, Hal Qormi.
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