Jonathan Ferris alleges Home Affairs Ministry requested ‘sensitive details’ about case
Former police inspector and Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit investigator Jonathan Ferris has told a court that the Ministry for Home Affairs had requested ‘sensitive details’ about a case he had been investigating.
Ferris, whose employment with the FIAU was terminated during his probationary period shortly after he had joined the unit from the police force, said that the request was something he could never accede to.
The home affairs minister at the time was Carmelo Abela, he told Mr Justice Anthony Abela in a constitutional case he had filed, accusing Commissioner of Police Lawrence Cutajar of breaching his fundamental rights and disqualifying him from his police pension when he terminated his employment.
Many police officers had been seconded to other entities at the time he had made his request, but for some reason, his had been refused. Ferris added that a large number of former police officers had been re-admitted to the force but he had not been allowed to re-join.
A person from the minister’s secretariat had pressured him for details about the case, he said, adding that this kind of pressure bothered him greatly.
He explained how he had been encouraged to apply for a post within the FIAU due to his extensive experience in combating fraud with the police force. It had not been an easy decision, he said, as he loved the police force.
Ferris had been engaged as a police inspector since September 2011, and was encouraged to join the FIAU as a manager (financial analysis) in 2016.
He had requested to be seconded to the unit, which entailed only a transfer from the home affairs ministry to the finance ministry, but this had been denied, he said.
He claimed that since 2013, 26 police officers had been given permission to be seconded to similar units. Between August and October 2016, Ferris said, he had attended a number of meetings with Commissioner Cutajar, but had always encountered resistance. Ferris said he had never been given a reason for the rejection of his request for secondment.
He subsequently sued the FIAU for unfair dismissal after his employment with the unit had been terminated while he was still on probation.
In May 2017, he formally requested the Commissioner of Police and Assistant Commissioner Dr Mario Spiteri to allow him to re-join and was told it should not be a problem, given his excellent track record. Despite this, his official request was never answered.
Ferris said he felt discriminated against because there had been 119 reinstatements since 2013 and his request had been completely ignored.
Ferris is being represented by lawyers Andrew Borg Cardona, Therese Comodini Cachia, Jason Azzopardi and Evelyn Borg Costanzi.
The case is set to continue in November.