Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1508267
15 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 24 SEPTEMBER 2023 NEWS Kimberley and the bizarre snus triangle But Kessler also declared in his report that even Gayle Kimberley should have been prosecuted in connection with their investiga- tion into a €60 million bribe – she was not, and Maltese police in October 2012 only charged Silvio Zammit while Dalli made himself scarce, staying on in Belgium for health reasons. Dalli was finally charged years later and is still in court, denying the accusations. OLAF investigators knew that Kimberley had lied about a meet- ing she claimed to have had with Dalli on 10 February at his St Julian's office, supposedly to im- press Swedish Match of her at- tempts at approaching Dalli. In deleted emails extracted by the Maltese police from Zam- mit's computer, Kimberley is also found in conversation encourag- ing the Sliema canvasser on sug- gesting a 'rounder' €60 million bribe from Estoc. Her lawyers have in the past insisted the email "has been shown to be false", while Zammit's lawyer said po- lice have never raised any doubt about the content of the email, and that the evidence should be presented in court. Indeed, OLAF investigators themselves pointed Kimberley out as a possible accomplice in the €60 million bribe request, in their report. Rather than being prosecuted, Maltese police elect- ed to use Kimberley as a witness against Zammit and Dalli. The email dated 29 February 2012 shows Kimberley's husband Matthew, forwarding a lobbying proposal to Zammit, suggesting that he forwards it to Inge Delfos- se, the Estoc secretary-general. "Silvio, suggest you forward this to Inge. Gayle is in copy. You may like to wait for her input before sending." The email contained a list of ser- vices that Matthew Kimberley's company You Rock Ltd could of- fer Estoc, with Gayle Kimberley's resumé attached. The fumbling Zammit forwarded the email to Estoc, leaving the subject line as 'copy/paste proposal'. Upon learning of this, Kimberley rep- rimanded him and guided him how to write the email to clarify the mishap. Finally in March, Estoc's Inge Delfosse started recording her conversations with Zammit as the canvasser got bolder in soliciting a handsome pay-off for the attempt to overturn the snus retail ban. Illegal telephone recording While Dalli steadfastly main- tained his innocence after 2012, he always claimed the industry had cut his legs off by conspiring with Estoc. The Zammit tele- phone calls were passed on to Michel Petite – a former head of legal services under José Manuel Barroso – who at the time of the recording was a Clifford Chance lobbyist working on the account of tobacco giant Philip Morris (PMI and Swedish Match then had a business relationship sell- ing snus in the United States). Petite took them to the EC's sec- retary-general. OLAF's investigation was later criticised by its own superviso- ry committee, which said that OLAF had listened in to a private telephone conversation between witnesses in July 2012, an action that contravened Silvio Zammit's human rights. "The recording of a telephone conversation in the presence of an official of a public authority, acting in the perfor- mance of his duties and making a crucial contribution by making available his office, his telephone and his tape recorder represented an interference in that person's right to respect for her corre- spondence." OLAF's investigation came un- der fire for being politicised: cen- tre-right and Green MEPs target- ed Kessler, and pushed to lift his immunity to face charges, filed af- ter a complaint from Silvio Zam- mit, for illegally recording the July 2012 phone conversation. In its ruling, the Belgian court earlier this month said it was "con- cerned" by Kessler's attitude, as he "claimed to be unaware of the existence of legislation regulating the recording of phone conversa- tions," even though these restric- tions derive from the European Convention on Human Rights that he could not ignore given his role as chief of OLAF. For Dalli, who believes he was removed on brittle suggestions of impolitic behaviour by an ea- ger Barroso, this decision might give him only slight reprieve for a career that has been dominated by other accusations of impropri- ety (he was later associated with a Christian con artist and his own daughter faces charges of mon- ey laundering). "It took 11 years to finally breach the European Commission's secrecy, although on just one part of the investi- gation," Dalli said in a statement following the judgment. "The truth will prevail." No lessons learnt As told to Politico this week, transparency activists know that since Dalligate the Commission has never improved integrity standards. "They don't have a pro- active, forward-looking agenda of scoping where the gaps in our transparency and ethics regime could lead to serious scandals," Olivier Hoedeman of the watch- dog NGO Corporate Europe Ob- servatory (CEO), said. Of six reforms proposed by CEO at the time of Dalligate, only one had been fully addressed: the removal of a lobbyist – Michel Petite himself – being on the Commission's ad hoc ethics com- mittee. After Dalligate, commissioners and top civil servants had to post all their meetings online and made entry in the Transparency Regis- ter mandatory for meetings. Under the global Framework Convention for Tobacco Con- trol (FCTC), the EC is expected to protect public health policies from commercial interference by tobacco lobbyists – and still there is no specific mention of tobacco lobbying in the code of conduct for commissioners, Hoedeman said. Even European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly criticised the Com- mission in its lack of uniform pol- icy, and for failing to log details of some meetings. Only the health DG Sante seems to take the matter so seriously as to block all dialogue with the to- bacco industry, to the latter's frus- tration. Gayle Kimberley Silvio Zammit Lawrence Gonzi and Manuel Jose' Barroso Giovanni Kessler