[attach id=256965 size="medium"]OLAF head Giovanni Kessler has been criticised over his agency’s Dalligate investigation. Photo: Reuters[/attach]
A Belgian judge is calling three MEPs who criticised the way the EU anti-fraud agency handled the Dalligate investigation to testify in the proceedings of a complaint filed by former European Commissioner John Dalli.
European Parliament president Martin Shultz communicated directly with MEPs Inge Graessle, Bart Staes and José Bové, a request by Belgian judge Jean-Claude Van Espen to give evidence in an ongoing inquiry.
The probe follows a complaint filed by Mr Dalli against the European Commission and tobacco firm Swedish Match in the wake of his forced resignation in October.
The former PN heavyweight fell from grace after OLAF’s report concluded there was “unambiguous circumstantial evidence” that he knew a bribe was being asked for in his name but did nothing about it.
Mr Dalli’s former canvasser, Silvio Zammit, allegedly asked Swedish Match for €60 million to lift a ban on snus, a form of tobacco consumed orally, which can only be sold in Sweden under present EU rules.
The agency often gave doctored information or information that had been cleaned up
This latest development was announced by Mr Staes in a statement yesterday right after a hearing of the EP’s Budgetary Control Committee.
This saw the agency’s head, Giovanni Kessler, defend himself from a raft of critical questions by several MEPs over the way he handled the investigation.
The impassioned former Italian magistrate was cut short by committee chairman Michael Theurer, who asked him to round up just as he was dealing with the claim that OLAF potentially breached suspects’ rights in the Dalli investigation.
“If we have committed crimes, these have to be decided by an institution,” he said, arguing that the strength of the OLAF investigation on the case was being tested in Maltese courts while any claims that human rights were breached during the probe should be dealt with in the European Court of Justice.
Whether Mr Kessler’s performance will stem moves to have him removed is still to be seen. The hearing, in fact, took place against the background of political deals that could see him being suspended or made to step down by the European Commission. The alleged breaches committed in the investigation were raised by the agency’s watchdog, the OLAF Supervisory Committee, whose annual report was the subject of yesterday’s hearing.
In an opinion issued specifically on the Dalligate investigation, the committee questioned whether OLAF had the right to obtain the phone records of Mr Zammit from the Maltese authorities.
It also questioned whether OLAF had the legal basis to instruct Snus lobbyist Inge Delfosse to record a conversation with Mr Zammit in which she tried to ascertain whether the alleged bribe money was intended for Mr Dalli. Nothing came from this call and it was not used, a fact used by OLAF in its defence.
However, the committee suggested that the recording could have breached Belgian law and the matter now seems to have caught the attention of Mr Justice Van Espen.
During the hearing, German committee member Herbert Bosch called on the Commission to look into the questions raised by the watchdog on OLAF’s investigation and take action.
“If there are infringements of human rights it is time for the Commission, as the guardian of the EU Treaties and the protection of human rights, to take action,” he said. He was answering a question by centre-right MEP Ms Graessle, who asked why the committee had not raised its concerns with a judicial authority for action to be taken against OLAF.
Mr Bosch said the committee had sent its opinion to the stakeholders, including the Commission, which, he urged, should act.
Earlier, another committee member, Catherine Pignon, accused OLAF of being reluctant to give access to its case files for scrutiny and that the agency often gave “doctored” information or information that had been “cleaned up”.
“Today, we still received information that is limited or ‘doctored’ or cleaned up in some way. And this does not help us to get a full picture of the situation to our satisfaction,” she said.
Mr Kessler stood his ground on these points, insisting that the watchdog had asked for a type of access that was unprecedented. Even so, he insisted that OLAF had accommodated the requests because it believed in the role of the watchdog.
However, he insisted that one should provide for a learning curve because all the changes were taking place right when a new supervisory committee was installed in February.
“So there were difficulties in understanding each other at first and it is understandable,” Mr Kessler said.
He angrily denied OLAF was in any way trying to hide its case files.
“This is not true, not true and defamatory,” he said, pointing out that he had simply wanted to put in place a structure because OLAF had become a “supermarket of information” and had also been ruled against by the European Ombudsman in this regard.
mmicallef@timesofmalta.com