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WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT WEDNESDAY EDITION €1.00 Newspaper post PAGE 9 • Editorial WEDNESDAY • 10 JANUARY 2018 • ISSUE 569 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY 7 Police union boss in favour of random drug tests for police TIA RELJIC RANDOM and mandatory drug screening of police officers should be done professionally and on the spot in order to ensure a clean and responsible police corp, president of the Police Officers Union, Sandro Camilleri, told MaltaToday. "A police officer has certain re- sponsibilities, and the police corp needs to be clean from any doubts, and clean from drug abuse itself." The inspector believes that drug tests on members of the corp should be conducted randomly and without warning, so as not to give individuals the chance to get clean in the meantime or otherwise in- terfere with the results. Police officers are tested for drugs in the case of suspicions, but what often happens is that these tests take three weeks to process – and this hinders the efficiency of the tests and gives way for cheating, ac- cording to Camilleri. MATTHEW VELLA A controversial case of match-fix- ing has spelt the end of two foot- ballers' careers, as a UEFA disci- pline committee issued life bans for U-21 Malta players Kyle Cesare and Emmanuel Briffa. One of the seven co-accused, goal- keeper Matthew Calleja Cremona, was the only person acquitted of the lot. He greeted the news of the decision with a long message on Facebook: "In my case justice pre- vailed, my name remains intact." Defender Emmanuel Briffa, how- ever, is insisting on his innocence. In a comment through his spokes- person, Briffa told MaltaToday he would still evaluate his rights once a reasoned decision is published. "I am not in a position to com- ment because I am still awaiting a reasoned decision, after which I will evaluate my position based on this reasoned decision," Briffa said. The UEFA decision can still be ap- pealed by the footballers. "I protest my innocence as also recognised by the criminal courts in its judgement," Briffa said, refer- ring to a court decision that acquit- ted him and Cesare. The two footballers, who had been suspended by the MFA pending the UEFA decision, were acquitted of the match-fixing charges in the game against Montenegro played in March 2015. PAGE 3 2 'I protest my innocence' says player on life ban UEFA BANS SIX MALTA UNDER-21 PLAYERS FOR MATCH-FIXING OFFENCES Maltese winters becoming ever more dry, Met Office data shows