Aldo Cutajar was re-instated after a court-ordered interdiction. The civil service chief, his brother, must resign now.

The police have asked the court this morning to order the freeze of the assets of Aldo Cutajar and his wife. They also asked the court to issue a perpetual interdiction on Aldo Cutajar “because he’s a public officer”.

If the court agrees with the request by the police, he’ll lose his job at the government’s park management department which he got after he was called back from Shanghai. It should be noted, for future reference, that the park management department is part of the tourism ministry which passed from Konrad Mizzi’s hands to Julia Farrugia Portelli’s.

There’s a fair amount of coincidences here. When he was sent to Shanghai, Aldo Cutajar was taking over the office famously previously occupied by Konrad Mizzi’s wife Sai Mizzi. At the time Julia Farrugia Portelli was responsible for passport sales.

Julia Farrugia Portelli took over the tourism ministry from Konrad Mizzi. And when Aldo Cutajar stopped selling passports (or did he?) he moved along with Julia Farrugia Portelli.

This is fascinating stuff.

It is not enough for Aldo Cutajar to lose his job. There are clear rules that we do not employ public servants with a criminal record and those rules are there so we don’t get people trusted to represent us in other countries using their public office to swindle people and launder the proceeds.

Aldo Cutajar had already been interdicted by a court order in 2004. He already lost his job as a civil servant.

But in 2013 his brother was made civil service chief, recruited by Joseph Muscat to the innermost circle of power that not even Edward Scicluna and Evarist Bartolo felt part of.

A reinstatement in spite of a court interdiction is a complex civil service procedure that will require the signature of the civil service chief and almost certainly the prime minister’s. There’s a file somewhere in Castille that almost certainly has a recommendation from Mario Cutajar to Joseph Muscat, the former advising the latter to reinstate Aldo Cutajar to the public service.

Mario Cutajar, publish that file now and attach it as an annex with your resignation.

This swamp must be drained. Mario Cutajar is far from the last one that needs to go. He is merely the first.