Malta Today is trying to sell the notion that that we’re talking entrapment here
Published:
October 18, 2012 at 5:27pm
From Malta Today:
The news, first posted on Twitter by Brussels-based journalists, comes just over a day after the resignation of health EU commissioner John Dalli was the subject of conspiratorial claims that tobacco lobbies had entrapped a Maltese ‘businessman’ by offering a fee to broker a meeting with Dalli.
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JOHN DALLI & MEPA
http://www.mepa.org.mt/SearchPA?Systemkey=86029&CaseFullRef=PA/07012/03
Is there a case number? Site doesn’t allow direct links.
The case number is in the link: PA 7012/03 but I don’t know how Dalli comes into it, the applicant is a certain Anton Callus and the farmhouse is in Siggiewi.
Anton Callus us married to Dalli’s sister or Dalli’s wife’s sister …. Not a million miles away…
Daphne, do you have an idea as to who the Maltese lawyer was? Toni A, or Roger D maybe?
I get what they’re saying, after reading it three or four times, but bloody hell that sentence is pretty hard work.
Lorna: You don’t hate john Dalli as much as Daphne does. So you can’t see what she does even if she too has not seen the file being sent to the Attorney General !
[Daphne – Just answer this question, Mr Privitera. Why are you so keen to stand up for John Dalli and pretest his innocence?]
Because it was the EU that found him guilty. The EU is evil incarnate therefore John Dalli is the innocent victim. Right?
Privitera is the sort who would feed mercury purée to his great-grandchildren just to spite the EU, just because it bans it as poisonous. There are shades of that in the national Censu Brared reaction to Arriva.
But Daphne why would Swedish Match hang them out to dry?
[Daphne – WHO CARES? Keep your eyes on the ball. For God’s sake, you can’t report attempted corruption without an attempt at corruption. That’s exactly why Dalli never got caught before: because too many people in Malta reason as you do, including those who had had dealings with him.]
The deal either went sour or their leak might actually score them points in a future consideration about the product lobbying.
I mean why would a monster corporation like that be dealing with a small fish like Silvio Zammit and how could John Dalli ever even contemplate using a broker like SZ for a deal so sensitive.
I am definitely not excluding the element of greed, but certainly would not consider JD stupid enough to fall for something like that. I am certain that their cut in a deal like that would have made millions.
I am not defending but something really does not tally here!
[Daphne – Yes, because you are reasoning like a typically Maltese person, Lorna. And because you have only a fraction of the information, when the rest is in a file destined for the Attorney-General’s office. You are not the investigator here, so it really doesn’t have to tally in your eyes. It only has to tally in the eyes of the investigating organisation. You have not been presented with evidence and asked to make an assessment. You have been told the OUTCOME.]
Tobacco lobbying deals translate into millions and would definitely have been handled by somebody more appropriate.
I am not reasoning..I am simply trying to follow the dotted line. Swedish Match had an interest in this deal and the lobbying of a decision, hence the communication.
[Daphne – The point is, Lorna, that you don’t have to and that it’s not for you to do that. THE INVESTIGATIONS ARE OVER. THEY ARE DONE. COMPLETED. What you have been told is the result. Being told the result is not an invitation to redo the investigations with no knowledge or information or access to people.]
Corruption of a public official or attempted corruption is a serious crime whether directly or through a dummy broker and the risks at stake for them are high especially with hard copies of e-mails pointing at their interest.
A typical Maltese person jumps to conclusions or is politically motivated to argue the way he does. I am not!! While i sincerely believe that JD’s lust for money is insatiable, his intelligence should never be underestimated and using a pawn,instead of a queen is very questionable.
[Daphne – John Dalli is not intelligent. What gave you the idea that he is?]
Secondly, the only entity to gain from all this is Swedish Match through massive international exposure and a tamed reputation which is not normally associated with tobacco corporations. In spite of their conspiracy, the profits will certainly outweigh the criminal involvement.
[Daphne – What conspiracy are you talking about, exactly? For a start, even if they were involved in collusion with Dalli, they’re protected by Whistleblower legislation. Or do we talk about whistleblowers only when it suits us?]
What i do believe is that when that kind of money is involved, everybody is expendable especially EU commissioners with shady backgrounds and particularly those who come from irrelevant micro states like ours!
[Daphne – I think you should turn that statement on its head: that what we have here is an EU Commissioner from a member state where he has been allowed to get away with this kind of behaviour for so long that he actually thinks it is normal.]
Well he single- handedly donated Mid med bank to HSBC for a fraction of its worth, exposing hundreds of millions of local property mortgages to a foreign entity without anybody voicing a syllable and getting away with it at the time!
I am certain that there was an element of commission in that one too!
[Daphne – Your xenophobia can be a little much at times, Lorna.]
But this is it, I bet that if the report were to be divulged, the discussion as to whether Dalli did anything wrong would go on forever in this country.
Shades of Berlusconi and his legalese, he who managed to drug a country into thinking that the Dalli’s of this world are the movers and shakers and that business should be held behind closed doors. Remember his flippant ‘none of our business’ when asked who his assistant would be in Brussels? Dalli is the sort of chap who thinks politics should be a platform for money and deals, and that everything has to follow suit.
In one of his gripes on Norman Hamilton’s program he outlines his mentality in full, projecting politics as some kind of funnel through which business should pass, and which to his great chagrin wasn’t going the way he insisted it should.
‘ma jibqax ghadam sura x’tiehu’ was his expression, how sad is that?
The question here is whether we’re willing to understand that a continent doesn’t have the time, let alone the parochial pettiness, to wait for our mentality to change.
John dalli, like Franco, JPO, Mugliett are a decade late and the whole of Labour twenty five years off, the message they’re trying to send us is to return the clock back to cosy Malta, where ‘nirrangaw bejnietna’. This incident is but an expected glitch in the transformation the country’s going through. Labour’s promise is that we’ll all be able to ‘nintelqu daqsxejn’
The difference in cultures I’m afraid, will exacerbate itself when Labour manage to get elected, the intention is to return to the border and watch, fact is, that notwithstanding what a lot seem to think about Lawrence Gonzi, his legacy will be felt as soon as he’s gone. Just wait and see.
Wrong question. Why WOULDN’T a company hang someone out for offering to help broker a deal with an EU Commissioner?
A deal, not a meeting.
The point really is that “being told the result” does not mean that we shouldn’t question or indeed doubt such result. I, for one, do not like the look of that Kessler guy. He looks way too pleased with himself.
[Daphne – Unbelievable. We are lucky enough that others did our work for us – and by ‘us’ I mean Malta – and instead we get cross at them, and suspicious. What next from the Labour contingent – T-shirts proclaiming that they believe John Dalli is innocent?]
Ah, il-barrani! How dare he!
T-shirts proclaiming that they believe John Dalli is innocent?
5 euros each – how many shall I put you down for?
I’m off for a snus zzzzzzzzzzz
“We are lucky enough …” that an Italian Magistrate ostracised from his own country did our work for us. Yeah right ! I’ll repeat it once again: I do not trust this guy. He seems too eager, too pleased, too cocky. And this was before I visited this link: http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/olaf-boss-criticised-for-launching-cash-for-influence-investigation/71404.aspx
[Daphne – Excuse me, but exactly which man is cocky in this case?]
Well said, Daphne. You are 100 per cent right.
Where’s Kev ta’ Sharon No2EU? Is he still busy with the dishes?
It seems that John Dalli is in need of Kev’s help to solve this conspiracy.