Doubters, naysayers and conspiracy theorists – please read this
In The Times, today:
‘Evidence Dalli knew what was going on’
Clearly a breach of ethics– Kessler
By Ivan Camilleri
“Hard evidence” exists to prove that former European Commissioner John Dalli was aware that Silvio Zammit was asking for money in his name, the chief of the EU anti-fraud agency told a restricted closed-doors meeting with group coordinators of the European Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee.
Although awareness was not a crime in itself, it was clearly a breach of ethics and misconduct, Giovanni Kessler said at the meeting in Strasbourg. According to a source, Mr Kessler gave more details of OLAF’s investigations following a tip-off by the Swedish tobacco company Swedish Match.
Admitting that OLAF had no proof of any criminal offences by Mr Dalli, Mr Kessler stressed it was evident that Mr Dalli had acted against the spirit of the Commissioners’ Code of Conduct and the Framework Convention of Tobacco Control “which Mr Dalli was well aware of”.
“According to this convention, public servants cannot have contacts with the tobacco industry unless they declare it. Mr Dalli met them several times and did not declare it. This is a breach of the convention,” Mr Kessler told MEPs.
Reiterating his declarations made the day after Mr Dalli’s resignation in Brussels, Mr Kessler told MEPs that “unambiguous pieces of evidence” gathered through all legal means permitted in the EU clearly showed that Mr Dalli was aware of what was going on and was well aware that his “old friend” (Silvio Zammit) was asking for money and setting up meetings on his behalf.
“Mr Dalli vehemently denied this with us but we have hard evidence showing this,” Mr Kessler stressed.
(…)
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20121027/local/-Evidence-Dalli-knew-what-was-going-on-.442763
“Mr Dalli vehemently denied this with us but we have hard evidence showing this…’
There you go, Dalli contradicting evidence gathered, which during questioning may well have been kept from the commissioner’s knowledge.
John Dalli expects to know what the evidence is. He will.
I don’t think that John Dall doesn’t know what the evidence is.
Most probably, he was asked to explain it during the interviews.
OLAF made it clear that it gave Dalli the opportunity to defend himself even with a lawyer. Dalli is not telling us everything.
It is his privilege. Slowly but surely facts are coming out.
Dalli should have resigned quietly in July when he was confronted with evidence that he acted against the Commissioners’ Code of Conduct.
He would have spared himself, the Prime Minister and Malta all this embarrassment.
Can it possibly be explained any more clearly, to Dalli’s new band of defenders?
“Breach of ethics”, this from an entity which receives 1.6 Billion from Japan Tobacco, British American, and Philip Morris in euros to avoid the “circulation of contraband cigarettes”. I bet 1.6 billion goes a long way for a bit of leniency.
Breach of ethics? How about Rita Schembri? Knowing about the report in June her immediate withdrawal from the board when her name was flagged.
Kieku issemmi kollox ma tkunx daqshekk ovvja.
The central questions in Dalli’s case are as follows.
Did he or did he not know what was going on (yes – he sent a letter to Zammit through his lawyers).
Did he or did he not act to ensure Zammit stopped what he was doing (no).
Did Dalli’s behaviour breach the EC code of conduct? Yes.
Big Tobacco be damned.
Barroso has surely more evidence at hand than he showed Dalli.
He gave our Johnny an honourable way out but left him enough rope to hang himself if he persisted about his “innocence”.
Johnny will try to pull the temple down, he was good at it when he was an MP.
I like Gonzi’s non-involvement in this Dalligate.
Gonzi is involved. He caved into Dalli’s request for the job as a means of getting him out of the way.
Unfortunately, Rapunzel’s prince visited quite frequently so Rapunzel was periodically able to escape from captivity to come home and stir up trouble.
OK ,maybe I did not explain myself clearly . Gonzi is not involved in the sacking of ex-commissioner Dalli.
Gonzi lit the blue touch-paper and stood back.
“I like Gonzi’s non-involvement in this Dalligate.”
I agree.
Not the same can be said about the involvement of Joseph Muscat. He was the first port of call after Barroso threw John Dalli out of the door of his office. Joseph received a call from Dalli soon after the event, remember?
The police should investigate why such call was made.
The one thing that really gets my knickers in a twist is that people like Dalli rely on the innocence or naivety (not to use ignorance) of those few who genuinely and without ulterior motive believe that there is a shred of sincerity in Dalli’s claim to innocence of the facts.
And it is these same gullible suckers who are giving him the courage and leg-room to keep up this sham of incredulity and awe in the face of accusations which he himself must know to be true.
One must be a fool to think that he can outflank Barroso, Kessler and the entire European Commission (whilst making a mockery of us Maltese) but others are more foolish to give him the space and benefit of the doubt (where not a slither exists) to keep trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
Of course, one cannot expect him to confess and climb into his hole, but in creating this circus (excuse the reference, Mr. Zammit) he is unnecessarily dragging Malta under a dark shadow which we surely do not deserve, especially not from Mr. Dalli who, in his Chaplinesque way, seems always to attract the rain clouds wherever he goes.
When the Mistra saga broke out I was naive enough to defend Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando tooth and nail on The Times comments boards.
After the truth came out years later, I learned that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it MUST be a duck.
I am just sitting and watching safely this tragicomedy of errors unfold in front of my eyes from a distance.
If this happened during election time, I would have been penning replies and writing comments in defence of the ‘presumed innocent’ politician.
Let the bastards drown in their greed, and find no one to rescue them.
“gathered through all legal means permitted in the EU ”
Could this be the email hacking that Dalli complained about?
If the emails were sent from the EUs own servers then that would be straight forward enough, they could just search through their own files.
If the emails were from outside the EU offices then that would involve court orders to access the files, wherever they may be.
I can think of any number of combinations of sequences of events that are too boring to list here.
But basically any email sent to the Swedes or ESTOC or anyone else will be traceable to the originating computer or mobile device unless the sender has covered their tracks.
You could use a public PC at a council or internet cafe and that would be hard to prove who sent it. But use your own PC at work or home and the place, date and time will be logged and available to the investigators, who are at this moment Malta’s finest boys in blue.
‘Although awareness was not a crime in itself, it was clearly a breach of ethics and misconduct…’
It looks unlikely that the police will secure a conviction against Dalli if it is a case of unethical conduct.
If OLAF had “hard evidence” then why didn’t they say so immediately? Why did they say they had circumstantial evidence?
I’m no lawyer so I had to look up what circumstantial evidence is and what I found confirmed what I knew that circumstantial evidence does not really prove much.
It’s like someone seeing someone entering a house and seeing that person run out of the house where a murder was committed.
It doesn’t mean that person committed the murder. I think this lack of clarity is not helping.
Giovanni Kessler, Head of OLAF, referred to “unambiguous circumstantial evidence…” in his press conference soon after Dalli’s resignation.
There is ‘hard evidence’ that there was ‘breach of ethics and misconduct’. What more clarity do you need?
I’ll say this one more time for the sake of highly obsessed, naive Pollyannas:
To state that “hard evidence” exists that Dalli was aware that money was being asked and did nothing about it, but also that “no proof” exists of Dalli’s involvement makes no sense at all.
I don’t know what sort of ‘investigator’ Kessler is, but clearly he’s cornered himself nicely and can find no way out.