Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa is refusing to explain how a former footballer imprisoned in Tunisia in 2010 after being caught with 50kg of cannabis resin was given a police licence to work as a private security guard.

A spokesman for the Commissioner cited data protection laws and declined to give any details when asked to explain how Tano Farrugia – convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment – was given a private security guard licence, which requires a clean police conduct.

When The Shift insisted the Commissioner explains the matter, which is in the public interest as it may show a lack of due diligence by the corps when issuing such licences, Gafa only stated that the information would be investigated.

Farrugia was sent down for a 20-year stretch in a Tunisian prison in 2010 but returned to Malta in 2013 as a free man after a new Tunisian President gave an amnesty to some 300 convicts in celebration of the country’s Arab Spring uprising.

Pictures posted on social media by Farrugia himself and passed on to The Shift for investigation show him in a uniform belonging to CAMC Security Ltd, a private security firm with offices in Gzira.

While calling himself the company’s chief security officer, Farrugia has also been seen on television accompanying the company’s managing director Catalin Azzopardi while giving a donation to the Puttinu Cares charity.

Asked to explain how Farrugia was working as a security officer despite his criminal record, the company employing him at first tried to play it down by explaining all the company’s guards are covered by a licence issued by the Police Commissioner.

But when confronted about Farrugia’s criminal record, Azzopardi insisted that Farrugia was not employed with the company.

The Shift then sent pictures to Catalin Azzopardi showing Farrugia accompanying him during the television broadcast and asked for an explanation.

Tano Farrugia wearing the company’s uniform during a public appearance by CAMC Security.

After the image was sent to Azzopardi, no other answers were received.

By law, any individual performing security services, even when engaged with security firms, must have a private guard licence issued by the Police Commissioner.

The process is supposed to involve a thorough screening process to ensure licences are not awarded to anyone with a criminal record.

This case raises questions about the lack of background checks by the police.  It was only last year that Farrugia was involved in a widely-reported trial by jury.

Farrugia was the prosecution’s main witness against his associate in the failed 2010 drug trafficking operation – 52-year-old Egyptian national Ahmed el Fadalli Enan, who resided in Fgura and had been living in Malta for 29 years.

Enan was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison after being found guilty of conspiring, along with Farrugia, to import the 50kg of cannabis resin into Malta.

Azzopardi had told the court that when he was apprehended by the Tunisian police, Enan was using him as a drug courier.