Former Police Commissioner John Rizzo testified yesterday that he had decided to charge ex-European Commissioner John Dalli, in agreement with the Attorney General, over the snus corruption scandal.

This contrasts with recent comments by Mr Rizzo’s successor Peter Paul Zammit, who said there was not enough evidence to do so.

Mr Rizzo said the Attorney General Peter Grech supported his view that Mr Dalli should be arraigned over the case in December last year.

The former police chief, who was transferred to the Civil Protection Department following the March election, was giving evidence in the case against Mr Dalli’s former canvasser, 49-year-old Silvio Zammit, of Sliema, who is pleading not guilty to charges of trading in influence and being an accomplice in bribery.

Silvio Zammit’s lawyer Edward Gatt was cross-examining Mr Rizzo precisely in connection with the fact that, while Mr Zammit had been charged with bribery, the alleged author of this corruption, Mr Dalli, had not.

Mr Rizzo pointed out that, with his investigative team and the Attorney General, the decision was taken to charge Mr Dalli in December but he had been hampered by the fact that the former European Commissioner was abroad receiving medical treatment at the time.

When he was pressed on this question, Mr Rizzo referred to the fact he no longer had the power to enact that plan after Mr Dalli returned to Malta, shortly after the election. “You know I’m no longer commissioner,” he said.

In June, Mr Rizzo’s successor, Peter Paul Zammit, came to a different conclusion and announced that the police would not arraign Mr Dalli because there was not enough evidence.

He said he had reviewed the case with the investigators and discussed the matter with the Attorney General and concluded there was no criminal case to be made.

So far, Silvio Zammit is the only person charged in connection with the scandal that broke last October when the EU anti-fraud agency OLAF concluded Mr Dalli was likely to be aware Mr Zammit had asked for a €60 million bribe to help alter a planned tobacco directive.

The money would have allegedly helped lift a Europe-wide ban on snus – a smokeless form of tobacco that can only be sold in Sweden under current EU rules.

God forbid I should arraign someone because they change their version

Mr Rizzo made it very clear that the investigation conducted by the Malta police was “fresh” and separate from that carried out by investigators from OLAF.

He said the evidence showed that Mr Zammit was presenting himself as a confidant of Mr Dalli, someone who had easy access to him and could influence Mr Dalli at a price.

Mr Rizzo said Mr Zammit had been very careful about what to say in e-mail communications, not referring to Mr Dalli by name and had even asked his friend and witness in the case, Iosif Galea, to refer to him as simply ‘the commissioner’.

Mr Rizzo was also questioned about the involvement of key witness Gayle Kimberley, a lawyer who was employed by the smokeless tobacco lobby to push for lifting the snus ban.

OLAF had recommended that Dr Kimberley should be arraigned on similar charges as Silvio Zammit. However, the Maltese police chose to treat her exclusively as a witness.

When questioned about this by Dr Gatt, Mr Rizzo said “evaluating evidence is a subjective” process.

But Dr Gatt at this point read out an excerpt from the OLAF report that stated: “According to the evidence collected, it has been ascertained that Ms Kimberley was not telling the truth with regards to details concerning the events under investigation and there are also contradictions and changes in the subsequent statements of Ms Kimberley provided to OLAF of the contacts she had with Mr Zammit.”

The lawyer asked Mr Rizzo about this but the former commissioner brushed the question off, saying: “God forbid I should arraign someone simply because they change their version.”

Earlier Mr Rizzo had said there had been a lot of pressure surrounding the case but when asked whether this had come from then Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, he said it did not.

He said the pressure was being piled on by the media and Parliament.

Asked if Dr Gonzi had ever asked him about the case, he said that he had not, adding that he (Mr Rizzo) had only mentioned the case in passing when briefing the former Prime Minister about the bribery case against the late judge Ray Pace.

Asked about the coincidental timing of the arraignment of Mr Zammit, who was charged a day after a vote of no confidence was taken in the previous government, Mr Rizzo said there was no reason other than pressure for the case to be concluded.

He said: “If you look at the police report you will see just how superfluous your question is.”

Asked if it was also a coincidence that Mr Dalli had been interrogated on the same day that his successor, Tonio Borg, was facing a grilling by MEPs as part of the process confirming him as European Commissioner, Mr Rizzo said that Mr Dalli had been abroad and chose to come to Malta on that day.

At the end of the sitting, Dr Gatt requested that the Attorney General regulate his position with regard to the charges.

Since it appeared that Mr Dalli would not be arraigned, the charge of being an accomplice with Mr Dalli in bribery could not exist, he said.