If you were asked to draw somebody clueless and incompetent, the kind of airheaded comical illustration who struggles to grasp his whereabouts at any given time, you might think to draw the ex-commissioner of police, Lawrence Cutajar. His reported closeness with a key player in the assassination plot now risks his complicity.

As a man known for his partiality to eating rabbit, you’d be forgiven for thinking he might have been partial in the course of his duties, too. After all, Cutajar has vocally admired “the balls” of the disgraced Joseph Muscat who hand-picked him to be police commissioner back in 2016. Maybe that isn’t the most reassuring of things to read from the person supposed to be instrumental to upholding the indiscriminate application of the law, including investigating crime at the highest levels of government.

In a bout of poetic irony, just hours after Cutajar defended his efficacy under oath, ex-prime minister Muscat was summoned by the police to be interrogated in Floriana. Cutajar himself confirmed that Yorgen Fenech told the police he had significant information on the financial structures that were used to siphon millions through corrupt deals. Only today did it ostensibly prompt any action.

Things seem to be moving now, after years of protests and months after Cutajar finally submitted his resignation to coincide with Muscat’s own departure, even if Cutajar resents the suggestion that he was not up to the job. On the contrary, he boasts, petty theft like pickpocketing was kept in check. 

It would have been nice if the country’s top policeman could have chased the political and business elite for murder and the theft of millions or euros of taxpayers’ money, too. 

It would have been nice, for instance, if the corrupt accountants responsible for abetting Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi, and their friends of friends were properly investigated for assisting in money laundering.

Every question that is posed to Cutajar is answered feebly with a plea of incompetence: either he didn’t know, or he claimed his knowledge was limited. 

He insisted he acted on FIAU reports, but when pressed, he unconvincingly said that he skimmed through them, at best. 

If he didn’t act on the reports written by his own investigators, how are we going to believe that his office chased links overseas? Cutajar claims that he was told jurisdictions like the UAE were uncooperative, but he admits the situation might have changed. In any case, he explains, he only knows what ‘people’ tell him.

If the police commissioner didn’t know about these things, who did? 

Every question that is posed to Lawrence Cutajar is answered feebly with a plea of incompetence: either he didn’t know, or he claimed his knowledge was limited- David Casa

Like Edward Scicluna, he may have just been following orders, or acquiescing instead of doing his job. 

But unlike the ‘honourable’ minister, Cutajar is not part of a cabinet and the duty to exercise his powers according to the law are his own.

His own testimony suggests that instead of taking the initiative on serious crimes and political corruption, he relied on others who have now been disgraced and sacked because of their complicity and inaction. He has continued the recent trend of Labour-appointed officials and politicians passing the buck on wrongdoing that fell squarely within their remit.

The attorney general, who tendered his resignation just before Cutajar’s testimony, was apparently the one who advised ‘great caution’ in pursuing the Panama Papers case, while around the world, nations were on the ball to tackle the global injustice. 

The investigations that he failed to pursue were, by his own account, dumped on the laps of Ian Abdilla and Silvio Valletta, who were both kicked out of their roles, the latter in a major scandal.

Valletta, married to a Labour politician, enjoyed Fenech’s company at a football match in the UK and was filmed by Fenech in his Rolls Royce. 

The scandal caused Robert Abela’s first cabinet resignation and explained why Valletta bent police procedure to suit Fenech, even when he was under investigation for financial crime. His close ties with the murder suspect rendered him totally incapable of pursuing the case. 

He was eventually booted out of the FIAU, but that didn’t remedy any of the harm that had been done. Schembri, who is tied to the 17 Black scandal, enjoyed the impunity afforded by the Cutajar’s total ineptitude. The slightest initiative would have exposed the links between Fenech, Valletta, Schembri, and the rest of the crooks. 

To put it mildly, the judges on the inquiry were not impressed with Cutajar’s performance. 

Anxious to defend a record of inaction and a lack of responsibility, he tried to flaunt the arrest of the three hitmen as an achievement. As regards who paid them, things are jaw-droppingly bad. 

One of the alleged hitmen, Vince ‘il-Koħħu’ Muscat, was reportedly the first to mention Melvin Theuma. Cutajar discredited his testimony. An associate of Theuma, Edwin ‘il-Ġojja’ Brincat, is a close friend of the ex-police commissioner.

This is already an eyebrow-raiser, let alone when it emerged recently in court that the police commissioner spoke with il-Ġojja before he testified in court. Before that, he had even gone behind his colleagues’ backs – the same investigators whom he trusts so much – and spoke to il-Ġojja. Cutajar is himself being investigated by the police for allegations of bribery in exchange for Theuma’s pardon.

The situation beggars belief. Every person that Cutajar has mentioned has been tarnished by their incompetence or their complicity; he doesn’t have a leg to stand on anymore. 

In defending himself, he only comes across as a vacuous puppet at best, and like the rest of Muscat’s friends, complicit at worst. The more time passes and facts become known, the latter is becoming truer and truer.

As it turns out, the man’s only decision during his four-year tenure was not to take any decisions. In (not) doing so, he allowed corrupt politicians to take over the state and let criminals get away with murder. All this, and Cutajar still protests that the perception of his inaction is wrong.

David Casa is a Nationalist MEP.