Minister blasts PN organ’s ‘fake news’ on police chief’s future

Home affairs minister Carmelo Abela has roundly dismissed a report carried by PN newspaper Il-Mument which claimed that police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar is set to be fired.

In a statement, Abela described the front-page report as “blatantly fake news” aimed at stirring up division within the police force.

The front-page report claimed that Cutajar will likely be replaced by Angelo Gafa, a former Secret Services inspector who was appointed the police force’s first ever chief executive officer last December.

“These are difficult days for Cutajar, as he has started to realize that he was placed at the helm of the police force so that he could be literally used by Castille,” the report reads. “Friends and relatives of Cutajar are also of the belief that the government didn’t appoint him to this role because they have respect and faith in him, but rather because they wanted him to temporarily fill up a role that had been vacated by Michael Cassar after he grew frustrated at the blatant political interference.”  

The report also claims that there exists a rift in the police force between officers who support Cutajar and those who back Gafa as police commissioner.

However, Abela lambasted the report as the latest in a series of “destructive and vindictive attacks” by PN leader Simon Busuttil on the incumbent police commissioner.

“His daily attacks against the police commissioner have now reached rock bottom and have become destructive, vindictive and personal,” he said. “His aim is to destroy Cutajar and blemish his work. This fake news is nothing but an attempt by the Opposition to create division between Cutajar and Gafa, who are working hand in hand to modernize the police force.”