UPDATED/Labour Party deputy leadership contender, serving suspended prison sentence and banned by court order from holding public office, given senior post by Home Affairs Ministry

The Ministry for Home Affairs & National Security (portfolio: police, army, immigration, citizenship and visas) last April put on its payroll a man who has been interdicted for life and banned by order of the court from holding public office, and who is currently under a two year prison sentence, suspended for four years, for forging an immigration document while he was an immigration official.

Clyde Joe Cassar, who was Toni Abela’s rival candidate in the Labour Party’s internal election for deputy leader/party affairs in 2008, but who lost to Abela, is now human resources manager at the Home Affairs Ministry’s Agency for the Welfare of Asylum Seekers (AWAS).

Cassar was sentenced in December 2012. Read the judgement here: 16_12_2012-1325_2012-78339

When he stood for election to the Labour Party’s deputy leadership, Cassar claimed to be “an assistant veterinarian with degrees in biology and a PhD in philosophy”. There is no evidence of this and he worked as an immigration officer with the central government, in which context he committed the crime.

UPDATE AT 9.30AM: Before he was given his job at the Home Affairs Ministry last April, Cassar held a senior position in a state corporation in breach of the court order banning him from holding public office. In 2013 he was appointed senior executive at the Employment & Training Corporation headed by CEO Philip ‘Boobs’ Rizzo, and held that position until he moved to the Home Affairs Ministry.