Attorney General should be sacked over Panama go-slow advice – Repubblika

The civil society NGO Repubblika have called for the sacking of the Attorney General, after a public inquiry on the Daphne Caruana Galizia assassination heard a top police officer say that Peter Grech told him to go slow on the Panama Papers investigations.

Ian Abdilla, former head of the economic crimes unit, told the inquiry that AG Peter Grech advised the police to proceed slowly on any Panama Papers revelations concerning former chief of staff Keith Schembri and former minister Konrad Mizzi.

The advice was included in a raft of documents submitted by the police this morning in the public inquiry board looking into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Journalists did not have access to the documents but one of the board members, former chief justice Joseph Said Pullicino, referred to the advice when questioning Ian Abdilla, the former head of the Economic Crimes Unit.

Said Pullicino asked: “What about the Attorney General's advice to tread very carefully regarding the Panama Papers, because there was trouble brewing for the country? Was that why you did nothing?” Abdilla replied that he could not recall the advice.

“Peter Grech should resign. If he does not do so immediately, the only institution with the power to remove it shall be removed from: Parliament.”

Repubblika accused Grech of being an accomplice “in the failure of the institutions… so instead of allowing the rule of law, he allowed the rule of delinquents. This makes him likewise a delinquent.”

Repubblika also said assistant commissioner Ian Abdilla should be stripped off his police uniform for having complied with the alleged request to go slow on PEPs implicated in the Panama Papers.

“As long as the institutions of our country remain ruled by a slave and an accomplice of Joseph Muscat, we will never see justice,” Repubblika said.

Repubblika accused both men of serving the interests of the Labour government. “Peter Grech is nothing but a glove in the hand of mafia that has take over our country, the same mafia that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia.”