Repubblika leader Robert Aquilina has again asked for police protection, saying he is being followed by people close to a network of politicians and there are signs somebody tried to break into his family home.

Aquilina said that two witnesses had noticed that he was being followed by people “close to the network of politicians of whom he is critical in his activism” and that forensic officers had confirmed that markings on a door at his house were “compatible with an attempt to forcefully enter his home”.

The activist, who has been asking for police protection since April of this year, made his latest request in a letter to Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà sent through his lawyer Therese Comodini Cachia.

Comodini Cachia noted that the police had been made aware of the attempt to break into Aquilina’s home five months ago, but had failed to convey that information to the police department tasked with assessing risk.

“That Dr Aquilina has to inform you himself of such real threats and that these are then dismissed as they have been since his request last April, is an aggravation amounting to a failure by the police in fulfilling their obligation to provide adequate protection,” the letter reads.

As president of the rule of law NGO Repubblika, Aquilina has been vociferously critical of Gafa and the police force he leads. In September, he described Gafa as “the biggest obstacle to justice” being done in Malta.

In the letter, Aquilina also notes he is concerned about a Libyan national who tried to pass on a message to him “on the instructions of a Maltese businessman whom Dr Aquilina has named as being close to yourself [Gafa].”

Aquilina believes that attempt is related to him publicly questioning whether a police commissioner should be close to such a businessman and attend social events also attended by politicians who are persons of interest to the police.

The Repubblika president noted that there was already a worrying precedent: a person had been found guilty of threatening him and gathering information about him and his family, including their whereabouts, by following them in churches.

“But the risks now appear to be of a more serious nature,” Gafa was told in the letter.

“These real and actual threats of a likely attempted forced entry into his home, surveillance by person/s with security training, and instructions to harass him given by persons close to the Commissioner, cannot but be considered real and sufficient for him and his family to receive protection,” Comodini Cachia wrote.

A copy of the letter was also sent to deputy police commissioner Sandro Gatt.