Dalli to sue Sant

Foreign Minister John Dalli said yesterday he would be taking legal action against Labour Leader Alfred Sant for spreading defamatory rumours about him.

In a news conference earlier, Dr Sant claimed that an Iranian shipping delegation had to call off a working lunch organised for them by the local shipping company SMS as they had been invited to a meal with Mr Dalli's family at his house instead.

Dr Sant is alleging that Mr Dalli put pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line to choose as their local representative a company in which his relatives held an interest.

He said that in this scandal it was not Mr Dalli who was crucial but Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, who had the responsibility to ensure that such things did not continue to take place.

The company, Dr Sant said, had been brought over to Malta by SMS for Freeport transshipment work. But when the Iranian delegation was in Malta between March 4 - 7, it had been hijacked by Mr Dalli, then Finance Minister, on the premise that it was a ministerial delegation. This, Dr Sant insisted, was not true.

He said Mr Dalli had now admitted he had personally gone to the airport to meet the delegation. Mr Dalli's people, Dr Sant said, took over the visit by the Iranians, pushing the SMS people aside.

This was so much so that the delegation could not even attend a meal SMS had organised for them on March 6. The Iranians informed SMS they could not attend as they had another meal with Mr Dalli and his family at the minister's house, Dr Sant said.

He said there was more to be said about the case especially since the contract was awarded to Gauci Borda Shipping Ltd, in which family members of Mr Dalli were involved.

However, the information he had was exactly the same as that which the Prime Minister had.

In a statement later, Mr Dalli denied that on March 6 he had been present for a meal with the Iranian delegation at his home or anywhere else. He said he had never had an Iranian delegation invited for a meal at his house.

This, he said, was a chain of untruths which Dr Sant had allowed himself to be fed and which he was using in a slanderous way showing how irresponsible he was.

He said he would be taking legal action against Dr Sant for the defamatory rumours he was spreading.