Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is expecting former European Commissioner John Dalli to clarify his position in view of the latest revelation that he took multiple trips to the Bahamas as the EU probe against him was escalating last year.
Asked for his reaction in light of Mr Dalli’s recent appointment on a reform board for Mater Dei Hospital, the Prime Minister said yesterday that he was expecting a personal visit by Mr Dalli to explain his position.
The statement comes after Police Commissioner Peter Paul Zammit told Times of Malta he was looking into the latest twist in the Dalligate story, which comes after the International Herald Tribune revealed Mr Dalli had travelled to the Bahamas repeatedly in July 2012.
The newspaper quoted a Barry Connor from the Bahamas saying that Mr Dalli told him that he was in the tax haven “to move millions”.
Mr Dalli denied the claim, saying that no transaction was made and that he had travelled there to discuss the logistics of setting up a charitable fund to “help people in Africa”.
But Mr Dalli’s trip also coincides with an escalation of the investigation by the EU’s Anti-Fraud Agency (OLAF).
Mr Dalli’s office had just been raided, unbeknown to the Health Commissioner at the time.
However, Mr Dalli boarded the flight to Nassau on July 7, the day after he called his former canvasser Silvio Zammit, who had just been interrogated by OLAF.
Shortly after that phone call, Mr Dalli called Brussels to see if he could get out of a dinner that evening hosted by Cypriot Commissioner Androulla Vassillou, according to a Commission source who spoke anonymously to Times of Malta. Mr Dalli was told it would be impolite given the short notice and eventually decided to attend.
But the day after, he boarded a flight to Malta, from where he began the journey to the Bahamas and back to Cyprus on July 9, where he was expected for a conference a day later.
Mr Dalli on Wednesday issued a statement via his daughter Claire Gauci Borda claiming that this latest story by the International Herald Tribune was payback from a scorned client of hers.
Mr Dalli said Barry Connor had made the story up after his daughter turned down one of his business proposals.
Mr Connor is the landlord of a villa in the Bahamas that the International Herald Tribune claimed was rented by Mr Dalli’s family for three months for some $8,000 a month. According to the statement, Mr Connor eventually visited Malta but it does not say when.
“He wanted to organise some financial transactions,” Mr Dalli said.
“When my daughter was asked to help with this she turned him down as the transactions were suspect.”
After that, claims very similar to those made by Mr Connor to the Herald started surfacing as comments under a few blogs.
In his statement, Mr Dalli again blamed the European Commission for the latest developments, saying that after first “relying on the lies contained in the allegations” of tobacco company Swedish Match to start an investigation by the EU Anti Fraud Agency (OLAF) and then dismiss him from the Commission, “the Commission is again basing itself on another lie in an attempt to gain credibility”.
mmicallef@timesofmalta.com
Former European Commissioner John Dalli. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli
The villa in which John Dalli stayed during his trips to the Bahamas.