Updated 8.50am with Dalli reaction

A report by the EU’s anti-fraud office, OLAF, about former European Commissioner John Dalli’s trips to the Bahamas languished on the Attorney General’s desk for weeks last year before it was finally sent to the police, former police inspector Jonathan Ferris has claimed.

Mr Dalli, once a PN finance minister who later became a consultant to the Labour government, was forced to resign as a European Commissioner in 2012.

This was after an OLAF investigation found he had held undeclared meetings with tobacco lobbyists at a time when the EU was seeking to update the tobacco directive. 

A few months later, OLAF opened up a second investigation, this time into Mr Dalli’s trips to the Bahamas following allegations he used the trips to move large amounts of money.

The Bahamas connection features in a recently released documentary made by two Danish journalists about Mr Dalli.

Mr Ferris, who was involved in local investigations into Mr Dalli, told this newspaper he only learnt OLAF’s investigative report had been sent to the Attorney General through a chance meeting with OLAF head Giovanni Kessler during a conference in Rome at the end of June 2016.

“Mr Kessler asked if I had received the report. I told him I had not, and he seemed quite surprised. He said it had been sent weeks earlier,” Mr Ferris recounted. “He said he had sent the report to [Attorney General] Peter Grech, which was the proper channel to go through.”

Mr Kessler asked if I had received the report. I told him I had not, and he seemed quite surprised

Mr Ferris returned from Rome on June 26, 2016, a Thursday, and went to ask Dr Grech about the report the following Monday. According to Mr Ferris, Dr Grech initially said he had not received the report but then found it among the papers on his desk.

“I told Dr Grech to send the report to the police depot immediately. I received it around two weeks later,” Mr Ferris said. 

A spokesman for OLAF confirmed that the report was sent in June 2016.

The Bahamas report became part of Mr Ferris’s investigations into Mr Dalli, but he left to join the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) a few months later. It is not known what follow-up action there has been.

Dr Grech, who sits on the FIAU board, has been accused of failing to take action on a report from the unit expressing reasonable suspicion that OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri was involved in money laundering. But the AG maintains he is not privy to the contents of such reports.

Dr Grech refused to answer questions from this newspaper about when the OLAF report was received by his office and then sent to the police. He was also asked to explain any delays in sending the report to the police. He replied that he could not comment on specific cases.

As a result of OLAF’s first report, Mr Dalli’s former canvasser Silvio Zammit was charged with trading in influence over allegations he tried to solicit a €60 million bribe to help overturn an EU ban on the oral tobacco product known as Snus.

The case is still in court. Mr Dalli has consistently denied having any knowledge of Mr Zammit’s actions.

Former Police Commissioner John Rizzo said in an interview last March that there was enough reason to arraign Mr Dalli over the €60 million affair.  

But Mr Rizzo was removed from his post shortly after Labour came into power in 2013. Soon after, Mr Dalli returned to Malta from Brussels, having for some time been certified unfit to travel or face “psycho-social exposure”.

He was appointed as a government consultant on health-related matters in 2013. He no longer holds the role.

OLAF opened its second investigation into Mr Dalli, on his trips to the Bahamas during his time as Commissioner, a few months after he resigned from the European Commission. 

One of Dr Dalli’s visits to the Bahamas involved a round-trip from Cyprus and back in just one weekend. He was photographed in the Bahamas sitting next to an alleged fraudster who goes by a number of aliases, including Lady Bird.

Lady Bird is alleged to have been involved in a scam which saw American investors duped out of at least $1.5 million after allegedly transferring money to a company registered at Mr Dalli’s Portomaso address.

Mr Dalli denies wrongdoing, saying that the trips were related to philanthropic work and that the money was not for him.

A Sliema apartment that Lady Bird was staying in was raided by the police in 2015. The FBI are also involved in the investigations.

John Dalli reaction:

In a statement, Mr Dalli said the report gave the impression he was being protected by the Attorney General and the police.

As seen from the above facts, nothing can be further from the truth, he claimed.

This is a snapshot of the timeline he gave:

"On June 28, 2017, my lawyers in Brussels filed a case against the Commission for liability (damages). On July 11, after being notified by the court that they are being sued, the Commission requested the court to extend the time by which they need to reply.

"On July 25, the European Court of Justice rejected the request for extension.

"On June 16 – OLAF wrote to me informing me that they had concluded a report which it “is transmitting to the President of the European Commission for his consideration, as well as to the Maltese judicial authorities”.

"On July 19, OLAF refused to give me a copy, referring me to the Attorney General in Malta. Since then I have repeatedly written to the Attorney General for a copy of the report and it has consistently been refused."

Mr Dalli said in May 2016, he had lodged a report with the Malta Police against Upstate 8's Michael Brady, Times of Malta journalist Jacob Borg and the directors of Standard Publications for a false report and an attempt to extortion and blackmail. To date, he said, the police did nothing about it.

"On July 2, 2016, I extended my complaint to include Daphne Caruana Galizia and Giovanni Kessler who worked in tandem to fabricate this case. Once again I was not informed that any action has been taken by the police."