Two new assistant police commissioners appointed

Two members of the police force were appointed assistant police commissioner on Tuesday, the Home Affairs ministry said.

In a statement the ministry said that Michael Mallia and Anthony Cassar were presented with their letter of engagement by minister Michael Farrugia and Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar.

The ministry said that Police CEO Angelo Gafa and other high-ranking police officials were present for the ceremony.

Addressing those present, Farrugia said that many people believed that “police do an amount of work equivalent to the number of police at police stations”.

“What interests me, is seeing criminality decrease, more successes and seeing police do their work and reducing criminality in certain hotspots and operating on a system of target policing,” Farrugia said.

He added that the rate of criminality had gone down since last year, and was continuing to decrease. This, he said, was despite he fact that the local population and tourism were constantly increasing. Criminality had decreased also despite the country becoming more affluent.

Farrugia noted that the police force had manage to solve a number of previously unsolved cases, including a number of cases related to work by criminal networks as a result of the introduction of new technologies.                         

Commissioner Cutajar said he was pleased that the police force had once again opened its doors and given two new hardworking members the opportunity to advance in their career.