Busuttil insists policeman must be transferred over Facebook comments

Opposition leader says PN MPs don't 'feel protected' by policeman Eugenio Caruana • Speaker urges PN MP Claudette Buttigieg not to criticise his rulings in public

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil renewed his call on the Speaker to see that a police officer in charge of Parliament security is transferred elsewhere, due to his rude Facebook comments against PN MPs.

“I don’t care whether police officers are Nationalists or Labourites but that they carry out their duty, and this side of the House doesn’t feel safe and protected in his presence,” he said.

The fresh request after Speaker Anglu Farrugia ruled that Eugenio Caruana can remain stationed at Parliament, despite having written disparaging comments against Opposition MP Claudette Buttigieg in the past. He had noted that Caruana had written the status before he was deployed to Parliament, and that he has since apologized and deleted his Facebook account.

During today’s sitting, he called out Buttigieg for a recent opinion piece in the Malta Independent, in which she criticised his ruling as “totally unacceptable…by any professional and ethical standard”.

“I refuse to be intimidated by someone in a uniform who thinks he can bully and insult me on social media just because he happens to wear a uniform and just because he also happens to be a strong PL supporter,” she wrote. “The barest minimum should have been an apology. Certainly not a quasi-absolution by the Speaker of the House, which almost gives the green light for lower-ranked police officers to have a go at any MP they happen to dislike.”

Farrugia retorted that he had personally told Caruana that he must carry out his duties without in any way discriminating against MPs.

”My ruling was far away from your insinuation that I gave him the green light to say whatever he wants,” he said. “Parliamentary procedures apply to everyone, and while MPs are allowed to contest a ruling, it is wrong for them to attack the country’s highest institution in public.”

However, Busuttil argued that Caruana had also written rude Facebook posts against other Opposition MPs, including Beppe Fenech Adami, and Archbishop Charles Scicluna.

“The details were published in Il-Mument together with the screenshots of his statuses,” he said. “In light of this new information, we request a new ruling on whether you should seek his redeployment with the Police Commissioner.”