How did John Dalli have a copy of the email sent by the Swedes to Silvio tal-Mqaret?
Yesterday, Malta Today rushed to try and limit the damage to their hero John Dalli. The newspaper’s 50% owner, Saviour Balzan, backed Dalli in the party leadership race and Malta Today has been tearing Lawrence Gonzi to shreds ever since.
The newspaper reproduced an email message from the Swedish company to Silvio Zammit, John Dalli’s canvasser and henchman. “How much do you charge (to set up the meeting)?”
Of course, the purpose of this was to make it seem that it was the Swedish company which approached Silvio Zammit, and not Silvio Zammit who approached the Swedish company.
To this end, Malta Today did not show us Zammit’s original emailed proposal. And how do we know that there definitely was one? Simple: from the deadly letters ‘Re’ in the subject line, which come up automatically when you are responding to an email.
In any case, no number of Cunning Plans thrashed out around the Malta Today round table will address the issue of why the Swedish company should have approached Silvio tal-Mqaret out of the blue to ask him how much he charges to set up meetings with an EU Commissioner.
It’s obvious, and it would still be obvious had Malta Today bothered to Photoshop that ‘Re’ out of the email subject-line, that they did NOT approach him out of the blue.
But then Malta Today’s editor Matthew Vella gave the game away on TVM.
Interviewer: “Din l-email huma tawwielek?”
Matthew Vella: “L-email giet minn kwartieri vicin l-ufficju ta John Dalli.”
Interviewer: “L-email giet mil-ufficju ta John Dalli?”
Matthew Vella: “Ehe”
And no, I don’t think John Dalli got the email copy from Silvio tal-Mqaret yesterday for the express purpose of giving it to his friends and admirers at Malta Today. I think he was bcc-ed on the correspondence from the start.
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Clown Silvio is bringing the circus in Naxxar. Everybody must go, so Silvio will have enough money to pay his lawyers.
What a complete clusterfuck. You can take the bazuzlu out of Malta, but you can never take the Malta….no…. You can take the bazuzlu to Brussels, but you can never take Brus….anyway you get the point.
You can acquire as many legal offices in Valetta as you like, but it will never take the villager out of the ill-bred shit.
That too.
You don’t mean Franco Debono, do you?
He’s a Top Criminal Lawyer not a Village Lawyer.
By any chance, is Silvio is going to be one of the entertainers in a cage?
The chances are OLAF were probably already notified (and monitoring the situation) before this email was sent. Swedish Match probably contacted them as soon as they received the original email i.e. the one this was written in reply to.
It may well be Dalli was in bcc, but it’s equally likely OLAF was too.
I’m one of those who believes that the tobacco industry is behind this. If John Dalli is innocent, he will be able to prove it easily. But the longer he takes to come out with it, the more I wonder.
[Daphne – How would the tobacco industry have found Silvio Zammit?]
No idea Daphne. But the tobacco industry has such a strong presence and is such an experienced lobbyist in Brussels that for them to approach – or agree to use the services of – Mr No One from Malta Silvio Zammit in order to get to the Commission is just mind-boggling.
[Daphne – The point is, Tinnat, that Silvio Zammit is NOT Mr No One. He is John Dalli’s henchman.]
Daphne, didn’t you say Silvio is John Dalli’s canvasser? That’s your answer to how they found him right there.
[Daphne – Read my lips: canvassers and henchmen WORK FOR THEIR BOSS. Silvio Zammit IS not WAS John Dalli’s sidekick. In what world, exactly, do you try to entrap somebody by emailing his most loyal servant and asking him to do it?]
Corporations know how to find their way around and get in touch with politicians under the table because in the US it happens all the time, with lobby groups even funding election campaigns. I never understood how all that goes on and no one bats an eyelid. If Silvio had contacted Swedish Match, he would have likely contacted other interested parties too and those other emails would be coming out of the woodwork too.
[Daphne – My dear, even if the great big RE in the subject line does not tell you that this is a reply to Silvio’s email, rather than an unsolicited proposal, you have to ask yourself the very question that the investigators brought up: why did neither Dalli nor his henchman report the abuse?]
In the US lobby groups are part and parcel of the political system and there is nothing wrong with lobbying as long as it is done above board.
All NGO’s are lobby groups, so what’s wrong with that ?
[Daphne – Define lobbyist. Now define gatekeeper. Which one was Silvio Zammit? The latter. Paying a gatekeeper for access to a powerful politician might have been common practice in Malta in the Golden Years of Fusellu and Patrick Holland etc, and might still be common practice in Khazakstan, but it is considered totally unacceptable and extremely abusive in the democracies of the west. Try this comparison for starters: imagine if Barack Obama had a henchman who was paid to set up meetings with his Obama. Or if, to get access to David Cameron, you had to pay his driver. Now do you get it?]
100% on your last point.
You got me all wrong, Daphne.
My point is not this case but that is obvious corruption which even a blind person can feel.
My point was in reply to:
“I never understood how all that goes on and no one bats an eyelid.”
(Previous entry was a tentative experiment in typing with a spoon in hand.)
If John Dalli was BCCd in Silvio’s original email, he wouldn’t have been included in the Swedish company’s email when they click Reply or Reply to all. That’s the whole point of the “blind” bit.
Not trying to defend Dalli…just sayin.
[Daphne – Don’t exasperate me. It’s equally obvious that Silvio Zammit did not leave that email unreplied-to. And when he replied, and if he bcc-ed Dalli, Dalli would have a copy of the Swedes’ email too. Obviously.]
I don’t think the company would have copied John Dalli in on an email where they ask Silvio how much he would charge for access to the Dalli himself. I’d give them at least that tiny bit of etiquette.
[Daphne – GROAN. I did not suggest that the Swedish company bcc-ed Dalli (and it’s not about etiquette, but common sense). I said that his henchman Zammit almost certainly bcc-ed him. Dalli would have had that reply from the Swedish company not because THEY bcc-ed him, but because Zammit would have bcc-ed him when replying yet again. Each time you bcc you get the whole string of correspondence. For heaven’s sake, should I really have to explain these things? Let’s say I’ve agreed to bcc you on my email exchanges with X. You won’t get X’s messages directly from him, but each time I reply to them and bcc you, you’ll get the whole string beneath.]
Maybe on the yellow pages.
It could be that there are more people involved and Silvio Zammit was the front liner. Dan Mqaret kien ibih mhux tabakk.
He was also involved in some wrong doing with something which had to do with the ‘Pixxina’.
The ‘Bar at the Pixxina’ affair occurred when he was Michael Frendo’s canvasser and the latter was minister responsible for sport. That was around 1992. He’s been an asshole ever since.
What about the boat trip he organized during the EU referendum!
Ghax ma qdewhx hej.
As far as I know ESTOC has not denied that its Secretary General Inge Delfosse did send the incriminating e-mail to Silvio Zammit in which she took the initiative and enquired about the asking price for arranging a meeting with Dalli.
In whose interest is the authenticity of this e-mail being questioned if ESTOC itself is not challenging it?
Silvio cannot write in English. His email must have been written by a close confidant.
Ooh, that hurts.
That’s why it’s called estoc.
It will be interesting to know which email account Silvio Zammit used and what the IP address was.
But then I guess we already know that.
Can he at least speak the language or did he communicate in Swedish?
Silvio, like Ratzinger, is fluent in ten languages.
It is pretty obvious that most of the people here do not have a clue who Silvio is.
Suffice it to say he was educated at Harrow and then went up to Cambrage. Three Nitty to be exact.
He can barely speak and write Maltese, let alone English.
The Swedes picked out a Maltese entrepreneur at random to ask for help.
I always prefer to discuss foreign policy with the vegetable hawker.
Silvio is not a vegetable hawker.
He is just a vegetable.
A swede, a cross between a cabbage and a turnip.
That is why they chose him. He sounded familiar.
Dan ta’ John Dalli BA u ta’ Silvio Zammit huwa veru kas ta’ kif jghid il-qawl Malti.
Min jitwieled tond ma’ jista’ qatt imut kwadru.
U min jiddefendi lil dawn in-nies ikun bhalhom.
Jista xi hadd jghidli kif Silvio Zammit sab ruhu jaghmilha ta’ LOBBYIST meta lanqas biss jaf jitkellem?
Kif dahal fl-istorja? Minn fuq il-Yellow Pages? Min dahlu fl-istorja?
Min webblu biex jidhol fl-istorja? Kien hemm xi hadd li kien se jaqsam mieghu “il-bigilla”?
Hemm xi hadd mill-ufficcju tal-MaltaToday kapaci jwiegeb xi wahda minn dawn id-domandi?
Veru li Silvio Zammit bhala canvasser ta’ John Dalli kien qrib hafna tas-salvatur ta’ Hal Balzan? X’konnessjonijiet kien hemm u ghad hemm bejn John Dalli u s-salvatur ta’ Hal Balzan? X’kien se jaghmel bil-flus Silvio Zammit?
Still no word from the PM, the man who appointed him.
Are we to close our eyes and hope it all goes away?
Good point. Surely the man who appointed him must carry part of the blame, if not for the corruption of the appointee, at least for showing us up as unreliable shady dagos before the whole world.
I agree.
Lawrence Gonzi has more than enough on his plate, I know.
I am sorry for him. My loyalty to him remains unswerving.
He sticks out like a sore thumb in this ocean of corruption
This disastrous case has implications and consequences of national import.
The country’s CEO, who put forward the name of this accident-prone individual (to put it mildly) for the post of our man in the EU surely has some questions to answer.
And please no more of the sub judice excuse.
It is the executive that, in the eyes of the nation, is sub judice now.
In many ways, Lawrence Gonzi typifies everything that’s wrong about the Maltese. He is, for instance, easily impressed by bullshit, and has appointed dozens of incompetents to top posts.
Even worse, his inner circle is made up of yes-men intent on hedging their bets and covering their tracks incapable of challenging him on anything. And we all know what happens when a powerful man goes unchallenged. He becomes delusional.
The truth of the matter is that the PN does not deserve to win this election. No more than the MLP does.
Franco Debono’s hinted that he’ll set up a new party.
And there’s always Alternattiva.
All roads lead to Rome or, in this case, a Labour government.
curiouser and curiouser
The whole story still does not make logical sense to me, sorry.
[Daphne – It’s not meant to. It’s an internal investigation. The European Commission found that one of its commissioners had compromised the integrity of his position and, by extension, that of the Commission itself, and sacked him/forced him to resign. End of story.]
As far as i know, a lobbyist always has a master – so who is Silvio’s master?
Tal-Pastizzi.
I never ever watch One TV and what impressed me most in Bondi+ was the number of times DalliBA appeared on Hamilton’s programme and the hatred DalliBA showed towards the PN.
This programme showed, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was involved big time and may he rot in hell.
If Dalli was sending emails on Zammit’s name, he wouldn’t need to be copied.
In fact, he would think he was being clever by leaving his name out of the Zammit/Swedes emails.
I bet you any money they caught him through his IP address.
“How did John Dalli have a copy of the email sent by the Swedes to Silvio tal-Mqaret?”
Jien kont qed nahseb li forsi l-ex Kummissarju mar jixtri l-imqaret u kebbewhomlu f’kopja tal-email.
Issa tara, Daphne, kemm se jmur il-habs Johnny Dalli!