Finance Minister Edward Scicluna should assume responsibility for having appointed then assistant police commissioner Silvio Valletta to the board of governors of the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU), the civil society group Repubblika said on Thursday. 

The group observed that in parliament, Prof Scicluna defended his choice to select Mr Valletta to serve on the FIAU, stating that Mr Valletta had been nominated by the Police and not by him, and that in 2014 nobody could anticipate the way Silvio Valletta would act in the future.

"Edward Scicluna was the person who took the decision to appoint Silvio Valletta, consequently, it is Edward Scicluna who has to shoulder the responsibility for this decision," the group said. 

Mr Valletta has been in the news after Times of Malta revealed that he twice went abroad to watch football matches with Yorgen Fenech, the suspected mastermind of the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder. 

"It is not acceptable that a minister who weakened the FIAU by placing and maintaining in one the country’s highest institutions a person who clearly had a serious conflict of interest,  should continue to serve in our country’s government cabinet. We believe that one of the reasons why Daphne Caruana’s murder was made possible with such ease was due to the fact that the FIAU and other vital institutions of our country were not allowed to function properly." it added. 

The group called on the minister to publish the document by the Police Commissioner presenting a list of at least three nominees, including Silvio Valletta, from which the minister was to select one to serve of the FIAU.

He was called to explain the reasons why he preferred Mr Valletta to the other candidates nominated by the commissioner.

Has any persons or persons (apart from the Police Commissioner) communicated with him regarding the appointment of Mr Valletta to the FIAU? Who were the persons and what was communicated between them?