Suspended sergeant still waiting for Public Service Commission inquiry

The police sergeant who had publicly celebrated the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia is still suspended on half-pay, pending a Public Service Commission inquiry.

Informed sources told The Shift that Mifsud, who has faced previous disciplinary action, was still suspended from the corps after uploading a Facebook status which read ‘Everyone gets what they deserve, cow dung! Feeling happy :)’ in reference to Caruana Galizia murder on 16 October.

The Shift is informed that a board made up of three officers of a superior grade to Mifsud has been appointed but it is not yet known whether proceedings have been initiated.

Questions sent to the police force remain unanswered. Once the board collects the evidence and hears Mifsud, the board will then forward its conclusions to the Public Service Commission which is chaired by a retired Judge.

The commission which falls under the Office of the Prime Minister will then take a final decision. The process could take weeks to be concluded. Police officers can be booted out of the force by the Police Commissioner without going through the Public Service Commission process but this has previously led to the force being sued in court.

This is not the first time Mifsud landed in hot water and was severely reprimanded twice by his superiors for being drunk while on duty. Caruana Galizia had reported these cases on her blog.

In 2014, he was photographed in uniform at a gentlemen’s club in Paceville and this led to a brawl in which a patron was assaulted by other police officers, thrown into the back of a police van and had his smartphone taken from him and returned without the memory card.

Two years earlier, Mifsud had already faced disciplinary action after being photographed with two other officers drinking at a Paceville bar while on duty. However, Mifsud and the other officers were found not guilty because of a mistake in the time and day on the police charge sheet.

He was also reprimanded by former Police Commissioner John Rizzo for another episode which took place in 2012. After being accused of taking a heavy-handed approach in dealing with a minor incident at a McDonald’s outlet in St Julian’s, the sergeant was lambasted by Rizzo for his ‘lack of professionalism’ in dealing with the incident.