A report by the European Anti-Fraud Office OLAF about former EU commissioner John Dalli, which was produced in evidence in money laundering and fraud proceedings against his daughters, had important annexes missing, a court was told. 

This matter was flagged by defence lawyer Stefano Filletti when Louisa Dalli and Claire Gauci Borda were back in court for another hearing in the compilation of evidence that has been ongoing since 2018.

The siblings were arraigned over allegations about a $600,000 Ponzi scheme which saw elderly American investors lose all their funds, with monies wired to a company registered at John Dalli’s Portomaso address.

Charges were originally issued against the two sisters together with foreign nationals Eloise Corbin Klein, Charles Ray Jackson, Elizabeth Jean Jackson and Robert Mitchell McIvor, over alleged misappropriation, fraud, false declaration to a public authority and document forgery.

While proceedings dragged on, sometimes delayed by procedural difficulties, all four foreign accused passed away, the last being Corbin Klein who died this summer.

In September, prosecuting Inspector Hubert Cini who took over from former lead investigator Inspector Yvonne Farrugia, now Malta’s European Prosecutor at the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, presented a copy of the OLAF report as directed by the court in an earlier decree.

Prosecution evidence had revealed that OLAF and its officers had called for action to be taken against Dalli’s daughters, thus calling for the presentation of the OLAF report.

But it emerged in court that the documents referred to as annexes to that report had not yet made their way into the defence’s hands.

Filletti asked whether those documents were attached to the report when it was originally sent to the Attorney General or from the AG to the police.

Could the police request such documentation from OLAF so as to produce them as evidence in the records of the case?

Police Inspector Cini declared that he would contact the officers formerly handling the case as well as the AG to seek clarification on the matter.

The case, presided over by magistrate Caroline Farrugia Frendo, continues.

Lawyers Filletti and Stephen Tonna Lowell are defence counsel.