Former European Commissioner John Dalli has insisted he never hid behind EU immunity, and never sought anyone’s protection, in the case over an alleged bribery attempt during his time with the EU executive.
“I not only did not hide behind the immunity, I objected to the Attorney General using the immunity card to keep delaying the case they started,” Dalli said on Sunday.
His lawyers, he added, were in fact insisting the case should be heard so it could be made known that “the declarations made during these past nine years were not only illegal but also vexatious”.
Dalli is facing charges over an alleged attempt, made by his former aide Silvio Zammit nine years ago, to solicit a €60 million bribe to help overturn an EU ban on the smokeless tobacco snus.
He stepped down as the health commissioner in 2012 following an investigation by the EU’s anti-fraud office.
Zammit was charged over the affair. Although the police chief at the time, John Rizzo, had also planned to charge Dalli, Rizzo’s successor, under a newly-elected Labour government, declared there was no case for Dalli to answer to.
Last year, newly-appointed police commissioner Angelo Gafà reactivated the investigation and the police have now pressed charges against Dalli. However, when the case got underway on Friday, the state prosecutor requested an adjournment, saying the AG was waiting for European Commission direction on whether Dalli is immune from prosecution.
On Sunday, Times of Malta reported that the authorities only put in a request for the EU to lift Dalli’s immunity last month.
Citing the law giving him a right of reply, Dalli sent written comments to Times of Malta accusing its reporter of “distorting the facts”.
In it, he says that contrary to media reports, he was in Malta when Rizzo was police chief and that he was “locked up” for a night in 2012.
Dalli’s reply
This is the full, unedited text of Dalli’s reply:
“The case started in 2012, Gonzi was Prime Minister, Richard Cachia Caruana was the czar of Castille.
“John Rizzo and Angelo Gafa started investigation. Rizzo even said he was prepared to arraign me. There were reports then that Rizzo was being pressurised from Castille to act against me. Rizzo even locked me up for one night the day that Tonio Borg was in front of the European Parliament to replace me.
“They should have applied to lift the immunity at that time. Rizzo, and his political masters must have known about the immunity, they still chose to act illegally. Their interest was to demonise me… a function which the media mercenaries have taken on. They had six months with Gonzi in government to make the application for lifting the immunity.
“Contrary to what the media mercenaries kept repeating, I was in Malta when Rizzo was still Commissioner of Police.
“And the police were informed by my lawyer of my return to Malta before I returned. If they had a case then, they could have picked me up at the airport.
“Rizzo or Gafa never contacted me when they could do that. Still they had not applied for the lifting of the immunity. This hatemongering is intended to sustain the fabrication that the labour government was protecting me. Intended to distance the Maltese people against me. It did not work except with the few who were injected with the hate virus.
“The facts stare all people of good will in the face. If I wanted protection I did not need the labour government, I had the immunity of the European Union.
“But I was very restrained all these years. Even in the face of great hardship for my family and myself. I never sought the protection of anyone and I never hid behind any immunity.
“Unlike Giovanni Kessler who fought tooth and nail to keep the immunity shield to protect his illegalities. Unlike the Commission who refused to allow the Belgian Police to interrogate Giovanni Kessler and OLAF staff to protect the Commission Officials who were privy to the setup and fraud against me.
“I not only did not hide behind the immunity, I objected to the AG using the immunity card to keep delaying the case they started… as they did in the other cases they have instituted based on Kessler’s reports.
“My lawyers insisted that the case should be heard so that we have the opportunity that the declarations made during these past nine years were not only illegal but also vexatious.”