Former assistant police commissioner Ian Abdilla has yet to face disciplinary proceedings despite having been suspended from the corps for over nine months.

The status was confirmed by Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri in answer to a parliamentary question by PN MP Karol Aquilina.

Aquilina asked for an update as to what stage these proceedings had reached, with the minister saying they were "still pending".

Abdilla, who had been widely criticised for his inaction over the Panama Papers investigations, was suspended by Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà at the beginning of August last year.

The former Economic Crimes Unit head testified several times in the Caruana Galizia public inquiry.

He had tried to justify his inaction at the time the Panama Papers scandal broke by saying that he would have done things differently now.

“At that time, none of us had the audacity to take certain decisions. Today, I would kickstart an inquiry there and then, appoint officers and make a move. But back then [2016] it was a first,” said Abdilla, during one of his grillings in court.

The three judges presiding over the inquiry had been left perplexed by the fact that the police had not acted immediately upon a first letter by the FIAU advising them to “seize computers and servers from Nexia BT” and from Castille too.

In his reply, the former assistant commissioner had admitted that perhaps mistakes had been made at the time.

“Criticise us as much as you like. Maybe we took the wrong decisions back then,” he said.

During his testimony, Abdilla had admitted that his decision at the time had been to "wait".

He was criticised for his inaction for so long, despite having much evidence directly from the FIAU implicating a number of individuals in relation to this case.