[WATCH] Dalli, bruised by Barroso, vows to keep up fight for justice after illegal wiretap case

Dalli insists he was ‘suitable commissioner’ when asked about Bahamas misadventure

Former European Commissioner John Dalli has accused his former boss, José Manuel Durao Barroso, of having attempted to stop him from pursuing his revision of the Tobacco Products Directive, ahead of his eventual resignation from the post of health commissioner in October 2012.

Dalli was speaking at a press conference he organised on Tuesday morning at Portomaso in Malta, weeks after an appeals court in Brussels upheld the court of first instance’s sentence against former OLAF chief Giovanni Kessler but suspended its judgement on his convicton.

Kessler was first convicted of having carried out an illegal wiretap on Silvio Zammit, a Maltese canvasser of Dalli’s who solicited a €60 million bribe from the European smokeless tobacco lobby Estoc, to influence the revision of the Tobacco Products Directive’s retail ban on snus tobacco. He received a one-year prison sentence, suspended for two; but the Brussels appeals court suspended that sentence further, on condition that no offence is committed in a year.

Dalli told journalists that testimony by Kessler in the appeals case – decided on 19 June 2024 – the former prosecutor said it was Barroso who instructed him to commence the investigation.

Brussels court upholds illegal Dalligate wiretap sentence against former OLAF chief

Dalli said the allegations against him were made by a Phillip Morris lobbyist to then Commission secretary-general Catherine Day, and passed on to Barroso.

“OLAF confirmed in its report, which remains unpublished to this day, that I was not the instigator or a participant in this affair. The decision-making process in Sanco was not affected in any way… no money changed hands.

“Yet Kessler needed to substantiate some grounds for Barroso to take me out of office days before I was to take tough new measures against tobacco. These conclusions were the phone-calls taking place between me and Zammit,” Dalli said.

He claimed those phone-calls were Zammit keeping him informed of political developments in Malta at the time, and had nothing to do with the alleged bribe requests.

Dalli insisted that the tobacco lobby as having been “militant” against his proposed changes to the Tobacco Products Directive.

“I was fraudulently accused and humiliated – my country was humiliated. I fought alone for 12 years against the wealth of the tobacco lobby and the corruption of the institutions. I will dedicate my life to ensure justice is done, demolishing the omertà of those involved,” Dalli told the press.

Questions on a controversial career

Although for Dalli, Kessler’s conviction is not the end of the line in the entire ‘snusgate’ affair, he refused to concede to his unsuitability in the role of European Commissioner, when before 2012 his family was pursuing business interests with a group of American investors who later said they were defrauded by a Dalli associate, and when he hid the existence of a secret offshore company.

In the rally of questions from the press, Dalli was made to answer various inquiries on many aspects of his controversial career: he accused his former aide Joanna Darmanin of being a perjuror, and denied conflicts of interest he held as Commissioner while he was pursuing business interests with a group of American investors in the Bahamas – that midsadventure led to money laundering charges against his daughters; at one point, asked about a secret offshore company he did not declare to the European Commission, he also accused the ICIJ being a Soros-funded institution, the Hungarian-American billionaire whom he says “finances abortion campaigns.”

He was also asked about his knowledge of Shaukat Ali, the middleman in the Vitals hospitals PPP. He described a meeting Ali held with former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri – both facing corruption charges – as a “red flag”.

Dalli refused to delve into why the Maltese police in 2012 had not charged Maltese lawyer Gayle Kimberley, identified as a suspect in the OLAF investigation. As a lobbyist for snus producer Swedish Match, Kimberley was believed to have had a role in encouraging Zammit to solicit the bribe. “What I can say is this – she had been bound for a job at the Office of the Prime Minister,” he said, referring to former PM and arguably his nemesis Lawrence Gonzi. “Who was pushing for her to be employed there? And whay was that decision then changed after this affair?”

Dalligate – the full coverage

The Dalligate scandal, as it was called, erupted when John Dalli was working on changes to the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive.

His aide Silvio Zammit, who has since died, was accused of seeking a €60 million bribe.

It was at his restaurant that Zammit had been first solicited by a Maltese lobbyist, lawyer Gayle Kimberley, to approach John Dalli on behalf of Estoc, and Swedish firm Swedish Match. The company was seeking a reversal of the EU retail ban on snus.

Dalligate, the movie, is out. But its star is Green politician José Bové

Dalli resigned on 16 October 2012 after a four-month investigation by the EU’s anti-fraud unit, led by its chief Giovanni Kessler. OLAF said there was circumstantial evidence that Dalli was aware of Zammit’s offer to Estoc. Zammit was later charged in December 2012.

The OLAF report resulted in Dalli’s resignation from commissioner. But while Dalli was accused of failing to disclose some meetings with tobacco lobbyists, the OLAF report found no direct link between the Maltese commissioner and the request for bribes.

Kessler contended at the time there was “unambiguous circumstantial evidence” that Dalli knew about it – a list of phone calls made from Zammit to Dalli at the same time that he had been in conversation with Swedish Match and Estoc.

However, Kessler later ended up in the spotlight as Belgian authorities started looking into allegations that the Dalligate investigation was poorly conducted and politically motivated.

Zammit had been charged by the police in Malta with bribery but the case never came to its end. Zammit often complained that the delay in his court hearing had breached his rights.

Dalli was however only charged with the offence in 2022 – 10 years later. The former commissioner denied the charges, which include trading in influence and attempted bribery. The case against Dalli in the Maltese courts is ongoing.

The police never took action against Gayle Kimberley, formerly a lawyer at the European Council’s legal services in Brussels, despite OLAF also recommending criminal prosecution for lying about a meeting she alleged having with Dalli personally in his St Julian’s office. Zammit’s defence lawyer Edward Gatt had complained that the Maltese police had refused to charge Kimberley.

Right of reply John Dalli: Another presstitute attack

"Three weeks had passed after the Belgian Court of appeal delivered its sentence which confirmed the criminal conviction of Giovanni Kessler for being a liar and of being irresponsible. The Court changed the earlier sentence about my complaint and said that Kessler’s action did prejudice me and that I am entitled to compensation.

"The Maltese media, in unison, did not report this. They wanted to maintain the perception of my “disgrace”.  It must be said that the court again stated that it could not examine the total issue as the Commission had maintained immunity of Kessler.

"I made a press conference to state my case. That I have never been accused of any crime and that I was framed by the Commission using Kessler to give them the excuse to terminate me before I finalised the process of the Tobacco Products Directive.

"Matthew Vella attended the press conference, was evidently not interested in the substance of the conference but wanted to divert the discussion to his objective of demonising me and finding excuses for the Commission and Kessler. He based his attack on another fraudulent investigation by Kessler which according to OLAF’s own report was based on uncorroborated media reports. Matthew Vella is totally uninformed about the facts surrounding this investigation.

"This investigation was triggered by Barry Connors, a person who was reported to OLAF as a money launderer.  Mr Conner made his first contact with OLAF by letter on the 28 and 29 November 2012. On the 18 December OLAF advised Mr Conner that OLAF was dismissing the case as it was not in a position to act.

"This shows that this case came the fore months after Barroso terminated me and could not have had a bearing on Barroso’s decision that I was not ‘suitable to be commissioner’,  Barroso excuse was that I met tobacco lobbyists, a lie supported by the fictions of Kessler.  My real unsuitability was that I was pushing a hard Tobacco Directive which he did not want.

"Matthew keeps repeating that I had business deals with irreputable people.  The evidence that OLAF had showed that there were no such businesses deals and that they could not corroborate accusations of ill repute on the lady concerned.

"It must also be said that the trolls on whose blogs and comments OLAF based its information did not accept to give evidence when called to do so by OLAF.  Kessler still included their inflammatory diatribes in the report. It must also be said that Michael Brady, the main witness of OLAF, was made to change the evidence he had given in writing months before. This is criminal.

"I have now sent the documents relating to this other fraudulent investigation by OLAF to my lawyers to start a complaint against Kessler and OLAF. Matthew can inform Kessler of this so that he prepares himself to ask for immunity again."