Sant firm on claims against Dalli

Labour leader Alfred Sant yesterday vowed to "go on telling the truth" about Foreign Minister John Dalli's alleged intervention in a foreign shipping firm's choice of representative in Malta.

"They can file as many libel cases as they like," he said to resounding applause at a rally of Labour supporters who packed the theatre at the party headquarters in Hamrun.

He said he had been accused of mud-slinging in the case, but asked whether the way to lure investment to Malta was for the Foreign Affairs Minister to put "such a company in his pocket".

The rally was another activity in the MLP's campaign ahead of next Saturday's European Parliament and local council elections.

Dr Sant has claimed that Mr Dalli intervened so that an Iranian shipping company would select a representative firm in which his relatives have an interest, to the detriment of another firm that had long been the Iranian company's representative.

Mr Dalli has denied the allegation and has filed a libel suit against Dr Sant.

The Labour leader said that the company pushed out of business with the Iranian firm belonged to a Nationalist family but the MLP believed that irrespective of their political beliefs, business people had to be provided with the space in which to operate.

Malta's consul in Libya was Mr Dalli's former private secretary at a time when Maltese working there were coming up against difficulties to obtain a visa, Dr Sant said.

The Prime Minister, he continued, should take immediate action about Mr Dalli and not wait until after next Saturday's elections. He should stop clowning about and saying he is collecting details about the case. The country did not need a collector but a Prime Minister who took decisions and moved ahead.

Unless the country had a serious government, its economic development would deteriorate, Dr Sant argued.