Attorney General to start work on OLAF investigation

The Attorney General has announced that an inquiry report will arrive today afternoon for him to start his inquiry into the investigation by the EU's anti-fraud office OLAF, the government announced in an official statement.

The office of the Attorney General said OLAF, whose investigation into an alleged bribery attempt this week led to the resignation of the European health and consumer safety commission John Dalli, has an established framework for member states' prosecuting offices to conduct their investigations.

It will be Attorney General Peter Grech who will first see the report by OLAF, conducted after a complaint filed by Swedish snus tobacco producers Swedish Match in May 2012, which contains "circumstantial evidence" that links John Dalli to a middleman who sought to use his name in a bid to extract financial benefit from Swedish Match to influence tobacco laws in the EU.

"When OLAF feels that its investigations require further evaluation from national authorities, it sends its report to the competent authority of the member state. In this case it is the Attorney General's office. The investigation will not be public and the Attorney General will not be commenting on the merits of an investigation that is ongoing," the office of the AG said.

The company that reported an alleged attempt by a Maltese restaurateur to solicit a fee to set up an informal meeting with former European Commissioner John Dalli, has denied having 'entrapped' the Maltese commissioner in its complaint to the EC.

Swedish Match - TVM reported - "categorically denied" having entrapped Dalli, as alleged by the former commissioner, by soliciting a fee from Silvio Zammit through the offices of its European lobby ESTOC (European Smokeless Tobacco Council).

"All we did was to report our complaint to the European Commission and cooperate in the OLAF investigation," TVM quoted Swedish Match as saying.

MaltaToday understands that Silvio Zammit was in email and telephonic communication with the European Smokeless Tobacco Council (ESTOC) as recently as March 2012, in an attempt to broker a meeting with European Commissioner John Dalli. Swedish snuff producers Swedish Match were also in contact with Zammit back in 2011, allegedly having had an advance from Zammit himself. The report to the European Commission and OLAF was made in May 2012.

While an email between the two parties shows that Zammit was offered an undisclosed fee by ESTOC to fix a meeting with Dalli, Swedish Match have told MaltaToday they had received from a Maltese businessman an "indecent proposal which was credible and real enough" for them to inform the European Commission. Swedish Match also told MaltaToday they informed the Commission a few weeks later after receiving the offer.

The chairman of ESTOC is Patrik Hildingsson, the vice-president of Swedish Match.

Dalli's resignation came just days before he was planning to present a review of the Tobacco Products Directive to further regulate the access of tobacco to minors and non-tobacco products.

The cancer charity Smoke Free Partnership director Florence Berteletti Kemp said Dalli's resignation was an unfortunate event. "A few months ago, we exposed the tobacco industry's block, amend and delay tactics on the 2001 Tobacco Products Directive and warned that these tactics are being deployed again in this review process.