Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/480415
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 18 MARCH 2015 3 News Zammit was 'golden key' to Dalli CONTINUES FROM PAGE 1 "According to Article 5 of the WHO Conven- tion on Tobacco, an international treaty, and its guidelines, the con- tacts between public officials of signatories and representatives of the tobacco business have to be open and transparent," Kessler said. But with Zammit actually driv- ing the lobbyist to Dalli, Kessler said that this meeting "was more than 'bingo' for Estoc… Hamma- rgren knew very well they could not meet the Commissioner. They would have to filter that meeting with the Commission and meet in a specific room". At this point, as Kessler was asked to identify Silvio Zammit in the courtroom, the accused subtly gave the witness the middle finger in a gesture that went unnoticed by the court but was promptly re- ported on TVM.com.mt. A key plank in his investigation was hand-written notes allegedly made by Zammit during a meeting he had with Dalli on the 10 Febru- ary, 2012. His notes, punctuating a list of demands from Swedish Match that was given to him by Maltese lawyer Gayle Kimberley, suggest the content of what was discussed during this meeting. He said OLAF made no prior invitation to Kimberley for ques- tioning, and that his surprise visit to Troia, Portugal where the law- yer was attending a conference, was necessary to prevent a leak that an investigation on a com- missioner was taking place. "This was an investigation on a very sensitive issue concerning a top commissioner. We were very careful to avoid any leak of this allegation and of this ongoing in- vestigation… that the name of this commissioner goes to the press. "That is why we didn't send Kimberley a prior invitation to the interview... there was a high risk that she might have spoken to someone. The main reason was to protect the reputation of the Commission, and the genuineness of the source. If I told her in ad- vance that I wanted to interview her, she would have [manipulated] what she told us." Kessler also pointed out that Dalli lied about not holding the 10 February meeting with Zam- mit, only to admit holding this meeting in a second interview a fortnight after his first encoun- ter with OLAF. "He clarified that they did not speak about snus but about the political situation. This is an important point: we know that Zammit prepared for this meeting with Gayle Kimberley. We had further, indirect confir- mation that the meeting took place, because when we received the mobile phone logs at the end of July, we saw that on the 10 Feb- ruary there was a telephone call from Zammit to Dalli, at around 10am and another call an hour later, from Zammit to Kimberley." He then said that Zammit met Kimberley and Swedish Match representative Johann Gabri- elsson at his Sliema restaurant, where he demanded a €60 mil- lion bribe. Shortly after Swedish Match turned down his offer, he restated his offer in a communi- cation with Estoc. The 11-minute phone call he held with Estoc secretary-general Inge Delfosse was "historically, a turning point for the investiga- tion," Kessler remarked: after ob- taining the telephone call logs for Zammit, they deduced that the accused had called Dalli in be- tween two phone calls he made to Delfosse. The second phone call was recorded by Delfosse. Kessler says Zammit was cau- tious not to mention any names, using appellations such as 'your boss, my boss'. "And then he put forward a price for what 'he' was asking. These were the two re- quests of bribe, to Swedish Match in February and to Estoc in March, made by Zammit." Kessler was pressed by defence counsel Edward Gatt to explain how he had linked Zammit's re- quest to Dalli. "I understood that in what [Estoc and Swedish Match] told me, there was no doubt in their perception, that the request came from Dalli. Why? Because Zammit presented these requests as coming from Dalli, saying 'this is the price he is asking', 'at the meeting, after the meeting' – this money was for the commissioner, because it was not Zammit who could change the Commission's [rules]." FORMER EU Commissioner John Dalli yesterday accused OLAF di- rector-general Giovanni Kessler of perjury in a complaint he made with the Commissioner of Police. Dalli, whose request to face his former interrogator in the parlia- mentary committee for privileges was not accepted, accused Kessler of lying when telling the court that the commissioner pushed for lifting the ban, on two occasions, on 24 Janu- ary and 28 February, 2012. "I deem Kessler's statements not only defamatory but also as perjury. I request that you take appropriate action against Giovanni Kessler. As he will be leaving Malta today or tomorrow I would like you to treat this as urgent," Dalli told the Commissioner of Police in his complaint. "This is an outright lie. On 28 February, 2012, in a meeting that I had with my cabinet and [health direc- torate general] DG-SAN- CO between 11:30am and 12:30pm, I finalised with them the parameters on which they had to formulate the preferred options in the impact assessment that they were to prepare for submis- sion as the first step for the enactment of the [Tobacco Products] directive. These parameters included the ban on snus and also on other smokeless nicotine prod- ucts," Dalli said in a state- ment. "Based on these param- eters, SANCO, my cabinet and myself had a meet- ing with the health NGOs and MEPs on 29 February, 2012 between 6:40pm and 7:30pm. This was to listen to their views on the directive. "On 7 March, 2012 between 5pm and 6:30pm, the same team met with the tobacco industry to give them a chance to air their views. Af- ter these meetings it was decided by SANCO and myself that no changes were to be made to the original pa- rameters decided on 28 February, 2012." As a result of these meetings, SANCO presented the impact as- sessment on the Tobacco Products Directive to the Impact Assessment Board of the Commission. Dalli also sent the media an offi- cial summary of the impact assess- ment dated 19 March, 2012. In another statement, Dalli re- ferred to the statement by SANCO director-general Paola Testori Cog- gi, who was present for the Cabinet meeting on the amendments to to- bacco rules. She had told OLAF, the EU anti- fraud agency, that Dalli supported SANCO's position against the lifting of the ban on snus, and that she never received any request or suggestion to change the snus policy. "The Commissioner has always been against the changing of the ban on snus," she told OLAF. "In his usual style, Kessler chooses to ignore testimony that does not fit his agenda," Dalli said in his state- ment. Instead Dalli accused his former chief of cabinet, Joanna Darmanin, of having shared a Cabinet document behind his back, which he claims shows that it was she who pushed for the lifting of the snus ban. The excerpt gives the con- trast between Dalli's posi- tion and Darmanin's sug- gestion on Article 16 of the TPD, which dealt with the ban on snus. On one hand, Dalli's posi- tion is described as being in favour of maintaining the ban on snus, but also to allow member states to ban snus "if they see an increase in consumption and new mar- kets… so reverse it – do not ban but give member states the facility to ban if they see an emerging market." On the other hand, Dar- manin's suggestion is stated as "OK, but SANCO unit will have a heart attack on this… We can leave it after special chefs." Special chefs are a meet- ing of a member of each cabinet, the legal service and the secretariat general. They perform last minute preparations to proposed laws before they go before the College of Com- missioners. Dalli files perjury complaint on Kessler testimony No-show for Kessler in privileges committee THE European Commission turned down a request for OLAF chief Giovanni Kessler to appear as a witness in front of the parliamentary privileges committee. The committee is investigat- ing a breach of privilege com- plaint by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat against Simon Busuttil, for not retracting his claim in the House that Muscat person- ally intervened in the police in- vestigation concerning bribery allegations against John Dalli. Kessler was notified to appear in front of the committee yes- terday afternoon, but at 6:17pm, he e-mailed Speaker Anglu Far- rugia to tell him that the Euro- pean Commission had prohib- ited him from attending. "Any Commission official who is asked to give evidence before a committee of a nation- al Parliament carrying out an inquiry needs to obtain a prior authorisation from the College of Commissioners," EU Com- missioner Kristalina Georgieva wrote in a letter to Kessler. "Given the extremely short prior notice of the invitation re- ceived from the Maltese House of Representatives and the scar- city of information contained therein, it is materially impossi- ble for the Commission to grant you the mandatory prior au- thorisation and permission pur- suant to the above-mentioned rules by the required date." The committee agreed to a request from Nationalist MP Chris Said to make a formal request to the EC to authorise Kessler to testify. Former European Commis- sioner John Dalli yesterday asked Speaker Anglu Farrugia for permission to confront Kes- sler in the parliamentary com- mittee. But Farrugia replied that while all committees were open to the public, only those called in as witnesses can intervene during a committee, as dictated by standing order. "John Dalli is welcome to at- tend the committee like any other member of the general public, but the privileges com- mittee is not the right forum for his request," the Speaker told MaltaToday. He added that his reply to Dalli was passed on to the members of the committee. Dalli said that if Kessler was being called to testify on po- litical interference, "it would be interesting to see what first- hand information he has on this count." Giovanni Kessler. Photo by Ray Attard John Dalli: Determined