Malta assisted OLAF - the EU anti-fraud office - in its investigations of allegations on John Dalli, the Office of the Prime Minister revealed today.
Mr Dalli resigned his post of European Commissioner a week ago following allegations of trading in influence involving him and Sliema businessman Silvio Zammit.
The Office of the Prime Minister disclosed the information in reply to questions sent by The Times after an interview with Mr Dalli.
The newspaper asked when the Prime Minister found out about this investigation, how he came to know of it and what he did with the information from July up to the time the investigation findings were made public.
The Office of the Prime Minister replied as follows:
"On the 5th of July 2012 he (the Prime Minister) received information from the Cabinet Secretary Dr Godwin Grima that OLAF representatives were in Malta investigating a matter related to then Commissioner John Dalli. This information was communicated by AFCOS (Anti Fraud Coordinating Services - the Malta interlocutor of OLAF) to the Cabinet Secretary but no further details were made available.
"At a later date the Cabinet Secretary updated the Prime Minister and informed him that John Dalli was aware of the investigation. The Prime Minister called John Dalli and asked him what this investigation was about. John Dalli stated that he knew about the investigation and that the matter was being clarified by him directly with OLAF.
"With regards to your third question, the Prime Minister immediately instructed the Cabinet Secretary to make sure that full cooperation was afforded to OLAF by all concerned.
"Prior to the 17th July PN Executive Meeting, there was a telephone call as well as a meeting at John Dalli's request on the 19th of July at 11.00am at Auberge de Castille. The telephone call and the meeting dealt with his allegations regarding hacking and with allegations regarding a list of seven persons."
During the interview, Mr Dalli was asked by The Times if he suspected a Maltese hidden hand behind his resignation. He said: "It could be and I am going to stop here."
He insisted he had absolutely no knowledge of the alleged request by Maltese businessman Silvio Zammit for a bribe in return for influence on legislation in his portfolio.
Mr Dalli also said Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had spoken to him about the OLAF investigation months ago, before it became public, but would not disclose details of the conversation.
Mr Dalli also said that while in the Tobacco Directive he proposed, that the ban on snus be retained, he had wanted a ban on all smokeless tobacco but this was changed after pressure from the European Commission.
"In fact, in the final version, the ban on snus is still there...
"In fact, to tell you the truth, we were also suggesting a ban on all smokeless tobacco but that was changed when we negotiated with the other services in the Commission," Mr Dalli said.
He said the opposition was not from DGs at that stage. It had not reached them yet.
"The fact is that when we were finished with the directive on August 25, we received a letter from the Secretary General of the Commission and the head of the legal services of the Commission – after this draft directive had already passed two impact assessments – saying that this had to be postponed because they wanted to discuss some other things. That’s your answer."