Rule of law group Repubblika has called on Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa' to charge a number of former Pilatus Bank officials, saying there is enough evidence of alleged money laundering to do so.

Addressing a press conference outside police headquarters on Wednesday, Repubblika president Robert Aquilina said the commissioner has been sitting on evidence for months and should not continue to waste time and charge the officials. 

The NGO named Mehmet Tasli, Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, Ghambari Hamidreza and Antoniella Gauci as the officials who should be charged immediately. 

An inquiry into the bank had recommended criminal action against the now-shuttered bank’s top officials. So far, only one of its senior officials, Claude-Ann Sant Fournier, has been taken to court. 

“It is truly a shame and a disappointment that even when Commissioner Gafa' has in hand an inquiry of more than half a million pages we still have to come here and demand that he act,” Aquilina lamented before walking into the headquarters to file a report demanding action. 

He went on to note that it was businesses, workers, young people and children who were paying the price of the police’s inaction. 

Aquilina said that he also wanted to remind the Commissioner that the NGO had also filed a similar report urging the police to take action against former prime minister Joseph Muscat. Similarly, the NGO also urged the police to take action against former ministers Chris Cardona, Edward Scicluna and Konrad Mizzi as well as those involved in the hospitals deals that saw the privatisation of three state hospitals.