Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/510672
WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT WEDNESDAY EDITION WEDNESDAY • 13 MAY 2015 • ISSUE 415 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY €1.00 EDITORIAL PAGE 10 Newspaper post Debono told Gozo contractor to issue false invoices for payments A Gozo court yesterday heard a contractor explain how An- thony Debono, the husband of former Gozo minister Giovan- na Debono, had directed him to issue false invoices to avoid suspicion over private works for Gozitan voters paid out of the ministry budget. This was revealed during the compilation of evidence against Anthony Debono, 59, who was last week accused of having misappropriated over €5,000 in public funds by virtue of his employment; of having prof- ited, to the tune of over €5,000, from public monies and private contractors; used his official capacity as a civil servant, to his own private advantage, in der- eliction of his public duty; ren- dered himself an accomplice in the falsification of public docu- ments for the issuing of pay- ments and goods; and abused of his public role and of pub- lic acts entrusted to him. The charges forced the res- ignation of his wife from the Nationalist Party. She has held on to her seat in parlia- ment, where she is now an in- dependent MP. At the end of the five-hour hearing, the court ordered the temporary freeze of Debono's assets upon the prosecution's request. The court said his assets would be frozen until a final decision is taken at a later stage. The allegations were first published in MaltaToday when a whistleblower said he had been left out of pocket when the Nationalist Party was not re-elected, and that works he carried out were left unpaid. The contractor, the first to avail himself of protection un- der the newly-enacted Whistle- blowers Act, said he had asked Debono for the money, then spoke to officials of the PN – among them secretary general Chris Said and party leader Si- mon Busuttil – demanding pay- ment. Three Gozitan contractors have since come forward to sub- stantiate claims that they were asked to carry out construction work for private residences or businesses by the Ministry for Gozo. According to the allegations Debono was running a works- for-votes operation, funded by government cash, for years on end. 'Dalli resigned voluntarily' – EU Court MATTHEW VELLA FORMER European Commissioner John Dalli yesterday lost an important claim in the European Court of Justice after having alleged that he was unfairly dismissed from the European Commission. The EU's second-highest court, the Gener- al Court, dismissed Dalli's claim that he was forced to resign, finding enough evidence to suggest that he voluntarily tendered his resignation without even raising a public protest at the announcement of his resigna- tion. It has been a bad week for the embattled former Commissioner and minister, who has always insisted that former EC president José Manuel Barroso forced him to resign when facing him with the covering letter of a report by the EU's anti-fraud agency OLAF, alleging that he was aware of a multi-million bribe attempt. Dalli resigned in October 2012, but since then, the so-called Dalligate affair has never ceased to generate new threads of investiga- tion: Dalli's former canvasser, Silvio Zam- mit, remains accused in court of soliciting a €60 million bribe, OLAF is being investi- gated about illegal wire-tapping during the investigation, and Dalli's association with a group of alleged philanthropists in the Ba- hamas appears to be the subject of a Maltese police investigation into the disappearance of up to €600,000 in cash. In a statement issued late yesterday evening, Dalli said the verdict did not change anything but his law yers were exploring the possibility of appealing the sentence. John Dalli, considering an appeal CONTINUES PAGE 5 Anthony Debono's assets have been temporarily frozen Former Gozo minister Giovanna Debono's husband has assets temporarily frozen by court CONTINUES ON PAGE 6