Rizzo wanted to press charges against John Dalli

A counter-examination of the former Commissioner of Police over his investigation into the so called Dalligate affair came to an abrupt end when he was seemingly unable to explain why bribery charges against Silvio Zammit, were not issued against the "author" of the alleged bribery.

It was a taut, hour-long session during which questions from Zammit's defence counsel were met with John Rizzo's vociferous defence of the way he carried out a fresh investigation into the bribery allegations investigated first by OLAF, the EU's anti-fraud agency.

"The charge of bribery here has an accomplice, Zammit, but not the author," defence counsel Edward Gatt told Rizzo. "How did you arrive at charging Zammit without charging the author of the bribery?"

Earlier, Rizzo said that he was of the opinion that former EU commissioner John Dalli had to be charged, and that he had the Attorney General's agreement but that he could not issue the charges since Dalli was away from the island seeking medical treatment in Brussels.

"You know I'm no longer commissioner," Rizzo replied, failing to explain why Zammit was charged with bribery without issuing the same charges to the person who should have been in league with him.

Zammit's defence said it wanted to summon Commissioner of Police Peter Paul Zammit to declare in court whether the charges of bribery against Zammit still stand. "We want to know what the position of the police is vis-à-vis the alleged author of this bribery charge. Because if Dalli is not to be charged [as stated by Peter Paul Zammit in the media], it would be the Attorney General now to decide whether this charge is to be retained.

"It's interesting to see what the Attorney General's opinion is, having given Rizzo one opinoin and a different one to the new commissioner of police."

Zammit stands charged with bribery and trading in influence for allegedly soliciting a €60 million bribe from tobacco company Swedish Match in a bid to influence tobacco legislation. The case, first investigated by OLAF, to the resignation of health and consumer policy commissioner John Dalli. Zammit denies the charges.

Rizzo today told the court he believed that Dalli had to be charged, and that he stood by his conclusions.

"OLAF's conclusions were built on circumstantial evidence... having seen the telephone logs and the way they fit into the case, I believed that [the conclusion] made sense," Rizzo told the court in a lengthy recollection of the Dalligate affair and the investigation he carried out.

But he seemed at a loss in explaining why he chose not to press charges against Gayle Kimberley, the lawyer who acted as Swedish Match's lobbyist in Malta, when she had been suspected by OLAF to have been an accomplice in the bribery.

Here, Zammit's defence lawyer Edward Gatt entered into a tug of way with Rizzo, demanding to know why no charges were pressed against Kimberley. 

"With the evidence we had in hand at the time, we did not have anything addition to proceed against Kimberley.

"OLAF reached their own conclusions... I started afresh, and we found new evidence that OLAF was unaware of, such as the fact that Kimberley's lover, Iosif Galea, was actually Silvio Zammit's close friend, which is why Silvio Zammit knew from the start that OLAF had interrogated Kimberley in Portugal, and that the first thing he did was to call John Dalli," Rizzo said.

It was an animated question and answer session, with both witness and defence counsel talking over each other. "But what difference did it make that the suspects knew of the investigation, to the fact that you did not charge Kimberley?" Gatt asked. "You felt OLAF's conclusion that Kimberley should be charged, to be wrong?"

Rizzo replied: "You know that one comes down to a subjective conclusion in an investigation. OLAF made its own decision. The way we saw it, was that we were in agreement with the Attorney General to use Kimberley as a witness until further evidence emerges."

Rizzo insisted that it was his opinion [he was part of an investigative team that included assistant commissioners Joe Cachia and Michael Cassar, and police inspector Angelo Gafà] that Dalli should have been charged.

"In my humble opinion, and the evaluation of evidence is always a subjective interpretation, that is what I maintained at the time, and I still do."

Rizzo denied having instructed a Swedish Match official, Johann Gabrielsson, to publicly keep up the pretence that a second meeting between Dalli and Kimberley - a meeting during which Kimberley falsely alleged to Gabrielsson that a monetary bribe had been floated - had taken place.

He also vehemently denied suggestions that the arraignment of Zammit deliberately took place "coincidentally" a day after the government lost a vote of confidence in December 2012, or that Dalli was deliberately interrogate the same day his successor, Tonio Borg, was in Brussels for his parliamentary hearing.

"No. It was parliament and the media that was pressuring us on pressing charges. Don't even try casting a shadow on the way we proceeded," Rizzo told Gatt pointedly. "Dalli did not make himself available for questioning earlier on."