A transaction involving Peter Calleja, the horticulturist who was recently convicted of bribery, and former Sliema mayor Nikki Dimech was one of 17 investigators labelled as “suspicious”, The Times has learnt.
The amounts of the transactions the police are known to have analysed range from €300 to €6,800
One of the transactions featured in Mr Dimech’s bank account involves a cheque for €4,720 issued by the local council for 500 ponsiettas supplied by Mr Calleja and which ended up deposited in Mr Dimech’s account, sources said.
The amounts of the transactions the police are known to have analysed range from €300 to €6,800.
Mr Calleja, 54, has just been given an 18-month jail term suspended for three years after he confessed to bribery involving Mr Dimech.
Sources close to the investigation said Mr Calleja gave the police a blow-by-blow account of what, according to him, had happened.
He told investigators that Mr Dimech had approached him for a commission if he were to be awarded the contract to supply the council with 500 ponsietta plants for the 2009 Christmas season. He had received a cheque for €4,720 issued by the council in December 2009. Mr Calleja said he signed on the back of the cheque and gave it to Mr Dimech. According to bank statements, Mr Dimech deposited the cheque in his HSBC account in February 2010.
Later, Mr Calleja claimed, Mr Dimech refunded a sum of €2,365, which Mr Calleja had paid for the ponsiettas purchased from Calamatta Landscapes Limited, his former employer.
Mr Calleja, a horticultural consultant by profession and a lecturer at the Malta College of Arts, Sciences and Technology, appeared before Magistrate Claire-Louise Stafrace on October 3 following an investigation headed by Police Inspector Angelo Gafà.
The sources said Mr Dimech had been interrogated on January 11, 12 and 13 and throughout insisted he was using his right at law to remain silent. In fact, he did not reply to any of the questions he was asked.
When contacted by The Times, Mr Dimech continued to insist he did not want to reply to any questions.
He would only say Mr Calleja was his client – being self-employed and he an accountant and auditor – and sometimes his clients used to pay him for his accountancy services with cheques addressed to them.
He noted that when the Internal Audit and Investigations Directorate investigated the Sliema local council last year it did find substantial irregularities and administrative shortcomings but no fraud.
Mr Dimech had also been investigated in 2009 and was kicked out of the Nationalist Party after saying he had admitted to receiving bribes.
He later said he had made the admissions under duress, a claim the police vehemently denied.
Sliema councillor Patrick Pace, who has been charged with bribery allegedly involving Mr Dimech, has resigned from the PN, according to the party, along with Mr Calleja and St Julians councillor Raymond Cachia, over similar charges.
The Sliema council is now composed of three Nationalist councillors (originally eight), two Labour councillors (originally three) and six independent councillors – five who resigned from the PN and one from Labour.