John Dalli had been called as a witness by Richard Cachia Caruana in his libel case against Malta Today managing director Saviour Balzan. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

No articles were published by Times of Malta in relation to the fraud case that John Dalli claims led to his forced resignation as foreign minister in 2004, a court heard yesterday.

Testifying in court last June, Mr Dalli had claimed that Times of Malta’s Steve Mallia had – as part of a media “attack” against him – written a story implicating the then foreign minister with fraud over a Mater Dei Hospital contract.

Mr Dalli had said this story was based on a fabricated report by private investigator Joe Zahra.

However, lawyer Joseph Zammit Maempel yesterday produced documentary evidence in court showing the only article written by Mr Mallia – related to Mr Zahra – was published three weeks after Mr Dalli resigned.

Furthermore, the article was restricted solely to Mr Zahra’s arraignment over the fraudulent report and made no mention of the former minister.

The details emerged during the proceedings of a libel case filed by Richard Cachia Caruana against the managing editor of Malta Today, Saviour Balzan, over an article published in May 2009. Mr Dalli was called as a witness by the defendant.

On June 27, Mr Dalli had testified that Mr Cachia Caruana “used” Mr Mallia to “attack” him through the publication of a story based on the fabricated Zahra report.

Mr Dalli resigned on July 4, 2004. Yet the report on Mr Zahra – who was subsequently jailed for two years – was published on July 24.

There was no evidence of an orchestrated attack against Mr Dalli

Mr Cachia Caruana’s lawyer yesterday produced a copy of the story published in Times of Malta. Dr Zammit Maempel said that this was the only time Mr Mallia had written about the Zahra report.

As a result, there was no evidence of an orchestrated attack against Mr Dalli, he argued.

In his reaction yesterday, Mr Dalli testified that Mr Mallia used to call him regularly about the case and had also implicated his children.

He also remarked that former prime minister Lawrence Gonzi had once told him that Mr Mallia and current affairs programme presenter Lou Bondi were putting pressure on the government to take action.

“Lou Bondi had even boasted that his television programme had led to my resignation.”

He added that he would be prepared to carry out his own research to sustain his claims about these “attacks”.

Mr Dalli said that following his resignation from Cabinet, the attacks shifted on his possible resignation from Parliament.

The former EU commissioner noted that he had never opted to sue anyone for libel, as it would not be worth the effort due to the lengthy nature of proceedings.

In his testimony, Mr Dalli also referred to a meeting with Mr Cachia Caruana on July 11, 2012.

He said that the meeting – held at Mr Cachia Caruana’s request – had taken place on the same day that the head of the EU’s anti-fraud agency, Giovanni Kessler, had interrogated him for the first time regarding an alleged attempt to bribe him to influence a new European tobacco directive.

He recalled thinking that it was odd that Mr Cachia Caruana turned up at his office some two hours later.

During the course of this discussion, Mr Dalli said, he was asked to highlight Mr Cachia Caruana’s good qualities while distancing himself from the attacks being made by former MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando.

This request was made a few weeks after Mr Cachia Caruana was forced out of his post as Malta’s Permanent Representative to the EU following a no-confidence vote in Parliament in which two Nationalist MPs broke ranks.

Mr Dalli said that Mr Cachia Caruana had subsequently sent him a number of e-mails in which he tried to “dictate” to him what to say in this statement.

At that point, Magistrate Francesco Depasquale suspended the sitting and adjourned the case to November 24, when Mr Dalli is expected to produce the relevant e-mails.