John Dalli received an e mail from a Nigerian general who had one hundred million dollars, which he was unable to withdraw from a Bahamas account, to fund a charitable trust.

Dalli decided to give advice to this Nigerian general pro bono, and travelled to the Bahamas to set up this trust, only to realise HE was being conned, and remained on the same aircraft heading back to London.

Simple – a face to face meeting leaves absolutely no trace of what was communicated. No trace, no proof. (hence Kessler’s famous circumstantial evidence).

Why fly half way around the world and back? This is more difficult to explain however a plausible reason could be that it could easily be put down to an episode of paranoia … a good plea of insanity if things go haywire.

[Daphne – A face to face meeting leaves no trace? Hardly. This whole thing blew up precisely because there was a face to face meeting.]

Excellent solid point of departure. The EU Briksa.

Will Joseph, and the Commissioner, still attempt to find a way of wriggling out of this inconvenient reasoning though?

It doesn’t sound too ‘positive’ as a perception.

Perhaps we have reached the public perception position where ‘positive’ spin by the press and Government is no longer sufficient, although it certainly appears well oiled.

They can continue trying, but it’s no longer enough. As in a relay race, the slack has changed the dynamics.

Well done Daphne for your consistency and perseverance.

I am thankful to the foreign press with the interest and resources to pursue this story.

Suddenly, our situation seems less isolated.

He visited the Bahamas again in the following months.

For some reason the interviewer decided to leave it at that and not consult the code which is easily available (http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/pdf/code_conduct_en.pdf).

Had he decided to take a look he would have noticed that the first sentence says: “Commissioners may not engage in any other professional activity, whether gainful or not”. Only a narrow exception is made in the case of unpaid courses and communication activities on European integration or the European interest.

So even if Dalli was giving unpaid probono advice to a bona fide charity HE WAS IN BREACH OF THE CODE OF CONDUCT FOR COMMISSIONERS.

If what he says is true – that he never left the plane – it only means that the other parties had to be physically present in the Bahamas ASAP.

Maybe he was on the plane to draft the contract(s)/deal(s) en route. Then he would have been able to send the foot soldiers with the signed paperwork so the transactions take place with urgency.

[Daphne – That’s why I asked whether it was a private flight.]

X’ma jaqbduhx is-psycho-social problems, miskin. Ta’ dik l-eta’!

To store the one-hundred million in.

And if he didn’t spend time in the Bahamas, where did the conversation with the landlord take place?

[Daphne – That was clearly not the only time he went there. He’s using Jesuitical reasoning again: he didn’t get off the plane on that trip. You don’t have much time for chats with a landlord when you are flying from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean and back in 48 hours.]