The former director-general of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), Giovanni Kessler, was on Wednesday ordered to travel to Malta to continue his testimony against former EU Commissioner John Dalli.
Magistrate Caroline Farrugia Frendo suspended Kessler’s testimony and ordered the Attorney General’s office to ensure that the witness travels to Malta to physically continue his testimony.
The court noted how she encountered several difficulties with the remote testimony, especially due to the lagging video link, which might also give rise to problems with the transcript. There were times when the witness spoke while being spoken to by one of the parties.
Kessler was testifying via video link in the compilation of evidence against Dalli, who stands charged with trading in influence and attempted bribery over an alleged €60 million bribe requested by his former aide, Silvio Zammit, to help lift an EU-wide ban on snus tobacco.
Snus is only available for sale in Sweden under a derogation. It is otherwise banned in Europe.
Dalli had stepped down from EU Commissioner in October 2012 over allegations that he was aware that Zammit had asked for a bribe from a tobacco company to modify EU legislation and done nothing about it. Zammit was charged over the case but died before the case was concluded.
He told the court about the findings of an OLAF investigation which provided evidence that Dalli held private, irregular, meetings in Malta with representatives of the tobacco industry concerning the EU legislation on tobacco in August 2010 and in January 2012.
Kessler said there was a planned meeting between Maltese lawyer Gayle Kimberley, who had been appointed by snus producer Swedish Match to lobby the commissioner directly, Dalli and Zammit. However, three days before the meeting, set for February 10, 2012, Zammit cancelled, telling Kimberley that Dalli did not want to meet her.
Kessler said the meeting was meant to see what the commissioner could do to lift the ban on snus. Kimberley then prepared a document with questions she wanted to ask Dalli and passed it on to Zammit.
He said Zammit and Dalli met and call logs show that Zammit held a 25-second call with Dalli at 10.18am and then called Kimberley at 11.11am, asking to meet for lunch when he gave her the same document with handwritten notes. During that meeting, Zammit told Kimberley that Dalli was open to considering lifting the ban but wanted money.
Kessler said Kimberly reported back to the Swedish Match representatives who travelled to Malta a few days later when they met with Zammit directly. That was when the €60 million figure was mentioned.
Throughout the sitting, Dalli was warned by the presiding magistrate that she would throw him out of the courtroom if he continued to interject, mainly to accuse Kessler of lying under oath.
Defence lawyer Steve Tonna Lowell and Stefano Filletti complained that the remote testimony was proving hard to control the witness. They said they would require Kessler to be in Malta physically for the cross-examination.
Tonna Lowell insisted that what Kessler said during the sitting was inadmissible as evidence as it was all hearsay.
Attorney General lawyer Antoine Agius Bonnici admitted the difficulty but stressed that no court procedures had been breached.
The magistrate then ordered the prosecution to ensure that Kessler is in Malta for the next sitting. Kessler, who was still on the call, did not object, simply saying he required advanced notice to plan the trip.