Former European Commissioner John Dalli has written to all Maltese MPs following a European Parliament resolution calling for an investigation into the Pandora Papers.

Times of Malta exposed how Dalli had hidden his interests in a British Virgin Islands company found in the Pandora Papers.

In an e-mail to all local MPs, Dalli said he was writing to them after the “corrupt media in Malta have been hiding to spin the perception that I used a BVI company for some illicit purpose”.

He described Times of Malta editor-in-chief Herman Grech and journalist Jacob Borg as “media mercenaries” who persisted in their "calumny", enlisting the complicity of a big name like the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), some members and functionaries of the European Parliament and a "handful" of newspaper writers in Brussels.

Times of Malta was one of hundreds of media organisations that worked on the Pandora Papers exposé, consisting of millions of secret documents leaked to the ICIJ.

Dalli called the revelations about his secret company a “SLAPP action by a mercenary media against its victim”.

“As I ventured to say to the MEPs, do not do anything that would give impunity to criminal media mercenaries and their corrupt political masters.  Push for strong incisive and responsible journalism.”

Dalli’s request to MPs comes at a time when legislators are being pushed to better protect media freedom in light of findings by the Daphne Caruana Galizia public inquiry.

Signing of his e-mail to MPs, Dalli said the “fake paper” Times of Malta is not journalism at all.

“It is a character assassination campaign.  It is a crime,” Dalli charged. 

Dalli is set to face charges over an attempt by his aide to solicit a €60 million bribe to help overturn an EU-wide ban on snus, a form of smokeless tobacco. 

At the time the alleged bribe was solicited, Dalli was the European commissioner for health leading reforms to the EU's tobacco directive.

His aide Silvio Zammit was charged in December 2012 with trading in influence and complicity in the €60 million bribe request from a Swedish tobacco company.

Dalli, however, escaped charges, only returning to Malta once the newly-elected Labour government removed police commissioner John Rizzo from his job. Rizzo has always maintained that Dalli too had a case to answer to.

Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had appointed Dalli as his "consultant" on health reform in 2013.