The anticipated presentation of the report by the EU anti-fraud office on the Dalligate investigation was postponed yesterday after the court case was deferred because the prosecuting team is busy with the oil bribery case.

The head of the Economic Crimes Unit, Assistant Commissioner Michael Cassar, and Inspector Angelo Gafà are both involved in the investigation concerning allegations that an Enemalta consultant took a commission on oil tenders from the Dutch multinational Trafigura.

Inspector Gafà was yesterday expected to present the report – which remains unpublished despite repeated demands for its release both in Malta and Brussels – during a court hearing in the case of 48-year-old Silvio Zammit.

The former canvasser for John Dalli stands charged with soliciting a €60 million bribe to influence tobacco legislation under the portfolio of former European Commissioner Dalli.

However, the case has now been postponed to January 31 on the prosecution’s request.

In the last week’s hearing, Magistrate Anthony Vella ordered the prosecution to present the document following a request from Mr Zammit’s defence lawyers, Kris Busietta and Edward Gatt, who argued that the lack of access to the report was prejudicial to their client’s case.

The police, which had been planning to arraign Mr Dalli before he was taken ill at a Brussels hospital late in December, resisted publishing the document but Magistrate Vella accepted the defence argument.

When, during the hearing, Magistrate Vella had questioned why it was taking the prosecution so long to submit the report, Inspector Gafà said the investigations were ongoing but had been stalled “due to matters beyond our control”.

It is understood that Mr Dalli has furnished the prosecution with medical certificates attesting to the fact that he cannot travel to Malta.

So far only Mr Zammit has been arraigned in connection with the EU probe, which in October saw Mr Dalli step down as European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Affairs after the anti-fraud agency concluded there was “unambiguous circumstantial evidence” that he knew a request for a bribe was being made in his name.

Mr Zammit was eventually charged with trading in influence and bribery over his alleged request for money from tobacco company Swedish Match, in return for lifting an EU-wide ban on snus – a smokeless form of tobacco that can only be sold in Sweden under current EU rules. Mr Dalli himself had made repeated appeals for the European Commission and the anti-fraud agency (OLAF) to publish the investigation report, claiming this would prove that his resignation was based on “conjecture”.

The calls were taken up by several MEPs and transparency activists. However, OLAF Director General Giovanni Kessler had said it was up to the Maltese judicial authorities to publish the document, seeing as the case was passed on to Maltese prosecutors to decide on any charges.

Meanwhile, even within the EU, progress has been made on the dissemination of the report when the European Commission’s legal services declared earlier this month that MEPs should be granted access to it.

mmicallef@timesofmalta.com

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