The Dalligate affair reignited yesterday with former European commissioner John Dalli and the EU’s anti-fraud agency chief Giovanni Kessler trading blows through letters sent to the Speaker of the Maltese Parliament.

Mr Kessler in his letter claimed Mr Dalli had sent a message via an acquaintance telling him not to travel to Malta because he might get arrested.

“On 19th June 2014, a source known to me informed me that during a meeting which took place on the same day in Brussels, Mr Dalli asked him to convey to me the message not to go to Malta, because I might get arrested there,” Mr Kessler wrote.

Mr Dalli’s reply was not long in coming. He published his own correspondence with the Speaker, dated June 17, in which he asked to be allowed to confront Mr Kessler over his “fraudulent (investigative) report”.

“I wanted to confront Kessler in Malta and would not have warned him not to come,” Mr Dalli said in a statement yesterday.

He acknowledged being in Brussels to meet lawyers on the day indicated by Mr Kessler.

He pointed out that Mr Kessler has been dodging similar requests to give evidence before a committee of the European Parliament, arguing that this was simply a ploy to avoid being confronted.

He said he also met some journalists on that day and told one that given the evidence emerging, Mr Kessler might be in trouble.

Mr Dalli claimed the journalist reported back that when he told Mr Kessler this, the former Italian magistrate said “they must have the tapes of the interviews with Gayle Kimberley” [a Maltese lawyer who was interrogated as part of the case] and of Mr Kessler’s conversations with then prime minister Lawrence Gonzi.

Police chief ‘failed to cooperate with OLAF’

Dr Gonzi last night issued a statement saying he had “never had any conversations or any form of contact whether direct or indirect with Mr Kessler, about any subject or topic whatsoever before, during and after my tenure as Prime Minister of Malta”.

Both Mr Dalli and Mr Kessler were writing in relation to a request by the Opposition for the fraud agency chief to appear before Parliament’s Privileges Committee, which is investigating a complaint by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat against Opposition Leader Simon Busuttil over a statement he made in October.

Dr Busuttil had claimed the Prime Minister interfered with the police investigation on the Dalligate affair to exonerate Mr Dalli.

The Prime Minister asked Dr Busuttil to retract the claim or substantiate it but the Opposition leader refused, arguing that his was a political conclusion drawn from a series of events that suggested interference.

The key events Dr Busuttil was referring to were a declaration by Police Commissioner Peter Paul Zammit in June 2013 that there was not sufficient proof to move criminally against Mr Dalli and the fact that the investigating team handling the case – former police commissioner John Rizzo, former assistant commissioner Michael Cassar and Inspector Angelo Gafa – were all replaced after Labour took power last year.

Mr Zammit also featured prominently in Mr Kessler’s letter when he claimed the Police Commissioner had failed to cooperate with three requests made by the anti-fraud agency, OLAF, between March 2013 and May this year as part of the Dalligate investigation.

“On three separate occasions (on 22nd October 2013, 31st March 2014 and 6th May 2014), OLAF requested Mr Peter Paul Zammit to collaborate on a new OLAF investigation concerning Mr Dalli. To this date, and despite reminders, OLAF has not yet received any answer by Mr Zammit, although Malta is required by law to cooperate and supply the information required to OLAF,” Mr Kessler wrote.

The new investigation Mr Kessler is referring to was opened following the disclosure of a visit to the Bahamas by Mr Dalli in the midst of the original probe.

The visit is likely to have breached the EU Commission’s code of conduct. Mr Dalli has said his business there was purely philanthropic.

Last night the Police Commissioner said he had replied to the one request made by OLAF “after the necessary verifications were made according to law”.

Government will be writing to OLAF to ask on what legal basis its requests were made

Mr Zammit, without going into further detail, added he could not permit the gathering of “alleged evidence” that was disallowed by law.

The government then issued its own statement, saying that given the different versions, it would be writing to OLAF for details about when and on what legal basis its requests were made, adding that it did not interfere in police work.

The agency’s original probe led to Mr Dalli’s resignation from the European Commission in October 2012. An investigative report by OLAF claimed there was circumstantial evidence suggesting that Mr Dalli was aware that former canvasser Silvio Zammit had asked Swedish tobacco firm Swedish Match for a bribe of €60 million in return for the lifting of an EU-wide ban on snus – an orally consumed form of tobacco that can only be sold in Sweden.

Mr Zammit is facing charges of trading in influence over the affair but is pleading not guilty.

Mr Dalli was never charged, even though the former Police commissioner, Mr Rizzo, said on record he intended to charge him.

The parliamentary privileges committee was meant to meet tomorrow but the hearing has been postponed.

In any case, Mr Kessler was not going to attend but said in his letter that he would be available should his testimony be deemed necessary in the future.

Separately, the police have also asked Mr Kessler to give evidence in Mr Zammit’s criminal proceedings but that request was only made to him five days ago.

The restaurateur’s lawyers are keen to cross-examine Mr Kessler on critical points concerning the investigation he had led.

After the OLAF report became public, the probe received severe criticism from various quarters, including the agency’s own watchdog, which concluded Mr Kessler acted beyond his powers in certain parts of the investigation.

In his June 17 letter, Mr Dalli premised his request to confront Mr Kessler on this criticism, and pointed out that Mr Kessler had been avoiding a list of questions concerning irregularities in the OLAF investigation.

For the first time, Mr Dalli likened the Brussels probe to the “fraudulent report” by former private investigator Joe Zahra, which in 2004 claimed that Mr Dalli was involved in corruption over a tender for the Mater Dei Hospital.

That report turned out to be completely fabricated and Mr Zahra ended up going to jail but Mr Dalli always blamed his forced resignation in 2005 on that document, which Dr Gonzi had not made public, pending police investigations.

He described the OLAF investigation as being “very much a replica of the fraud committed against me in 2004”.

“OLAF had to give an excuse to Barroso to terminate me and the local collaborators were to give him comfort in front of his critics worldwide that even the local authorities in Malta found a reason to chastise me,” he said.

Sources close to OLAF said the agency collaborates with court proceedings as a matter of procedure but expects summons to be issued with notice of some weeks not days.

The exchange reignites the controversy around Mr Dalli’s case as the European Court of Justice is on Monday expected to hear his complaint against the European Commission over his dismissal.

Both Mr Dalli and his former boss, European Commissioner Jose Manuel Barroso, are expected to testify.