Eleven former members of the Toronto police drug squad who were accused of beating up suspects and taking their money now face disciplinary action — but only six face criminal charges.

The alleged incidents date back to the mid-1990s, but they didn't surface until 2002, when they sparked a scandal — as well as a number of internal investigations and a 2½-year probe led by a senior RCMP police officer.

On Wednesday, for the first time, the force revealed the details of 83 internal disciplinary charges laid against the 11 officers. Six of them also face criminal charges and are awaiting trial.

On Thursday, their lawyers appeared in front of the police disciplinary tribunal to address the charges under the Police Service Act.

The officers face a range of accusations that includes conducting illegal searches, falsifying notebooks and not accounting for all the money seized in drug raids, the force said on Wednesday.

Lack of charges 'an outrage'

Lawyer Peter Biro, who had called for a public inquiry into the scandal, was not impressed by the force's decision to only discipline some of the former drug squad members.

He said the move minimizes the seriousness of the offences and lets some of the officers off too lightly.

"It is an outrage. It is more than an outrage," Biro said. "So the response to the allegation of misconduct is simply to discipline the officer … rather than to punish that officer for having broken the laws of the land?"

Crown makes the call on charges, supt. says

But the head of the force's internal affairs department, Staff Supt. Tony Corrie, said it wasn't up to the force to decide whether to lay criminal charges against the officers.

"In order to ensure we have fairness and transparency in most cases, especially serious case like this, we then put that in the hands of senior Crown attorneys to make those decisions," said Corrie.

However, a spokesperson for the Ministry of the Attorney General said Crown attorneys only advise. The spokesperson said decisions on who does or does not get charged criminally ultimately lies with the police.

The officers did not appear in front of a police disciplinary tribunal Thursday, instead sending their lawyers to address the Police Service Act charges.

Some of them have been ordered not speak to one another.

It is likely a number of the internal disciplinary charges will be thrown out. The police union is challenging them in court, arguing that the alleged offences date back as much as a decade and that the police service has no right to take action so long after the fact.

It was announced in 2004 that criminal charges had been laid against six former drug officers.

A twelfth officer on the drug squad was also implicated in the scandal, but he has since retired and cannot face internal discipline.