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OLAF report submission put off with prosecutors engaged in Sammut investigation
Swedish Match bribery case put off due to unavailability of prosecuting officer who is engaged in investigations into Frank Sammut corruption allegations.
24 January 2013, 12:00am
Karl Stagno-Navarra
Karl Stagno-Navarra
1 min read
The Magistrate's Court, Valletta
Inspector Angelo Gafà from the police Economic Crimes Unit will not be presenting the much awaited investigative report by OLAF into bribes solicited by Silvio Zammit, 48, of Sliema, after being taken up by the investigation into the Frank Sammut kickback allegations.
Zammit is accused of bribery and trading in influence after allegedly asking Swedish snus producers Swedish Match for a €60 million bribe, claiming that he could convince former health EU commissioner John Dalli to reverse an EU-wide ban on snus sales.
Last week, Magistrate Anthony Vella ordered the Attorney General to present a copy of the OLAF report, after upholding Zammit's defence counsel's request to have it submitted to the Court
The OLAF report is at the heart of the case which led to John Dalli's resignation from the European Commission last October.
Defence lawyers Edward Gatt and Kris Busietta said the report needed to be published because it was being mentioned by every witness. The fact that it had not been presented was prejudicial to the accused and denied the defence vital information about the case. The defence could not carry out cross examinations properly without this report.
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Imsieken, how busy! Not even time for a coffee! How will these people cope, when Labour is re-elected? What, will all those dirt cases to be brought to justice after the enactment of the Whistleblowers Act! And perhaps a very strong uptake of their responsibilities by the Police economic crimes unit. They would need to quadruple their numbers, and who knows, that is not counting those that might be asked to resign.
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We shall probably be going down a further ten lugs down the corruption perception ladder after all this corruption circus. And the GonziPN acolytes come on TV saying that the PN has always done its upmost to fight corruption! The corrupt fighting corruption!
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Following the court decision I said in a blog that the AG will challenge the court's order. Instead, the powers that be came up with the excuse that the Inspector was busy. But they still achieved their objective of witholding the report. Mark my words, the OLAF report will not be published before the elections.
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U ghaliex!!!!!!!???????
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Mela daqs dan korruzzjoni, f'wiehed biss investa GonziPN fil-pulizija? Korruzzjoni left right and centre! Mhux ta b'xejn li Transparency International qed toddosna aktar l-isfel fil-hama tal-korrruzzjoni!
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@ trevisan: According to http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/interview/Detecting-deception-Angelo-Gafa-20120318, the Economic Crimes Unit has no less than seven dedicated Inspectors.
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What a joke!!!
So basically the Police Economics Crime Unit is a one man band??!!!
No wonder cases take forever!
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Isn't this inspector the same one of former Sliema mayor Nikki Dimech and Martin Debono fame?
