Here’s the International Herald Tribune front-page report on John Dalli and the Bahamas – report from inside pages to follow

FRAUD CASE CONTINUES TO STIR UP DUST IN BRUSSELS

– Official was forced out with no direct evidence against him, critics say
By James Kanter and Andrew Higgins

When European Union health ministers met last July for an informal gathering in Cyprus, John Dalli, the official responsible for overseeing their work, appeared curiously stressed and tired.

He skipped a welcome dinner and was drawn and visibly fatigued during meetings the next day.

Colleagues, who knew Mr Dalli as conscientious and focussed, were mystified. But their questions were quickly swamped by far bigger ones when, three months later, Mr Dalli, 64, was suddenly pressured to resign.

Investigators from the European Commission’s Anti-Fraud Office had concluded that Mr Dalli, then commissioner for health and consumer policy, probably knew about an attempt by a Maltese acquaintance to solicit a multi-million-dollar pay-off in exchange for help easing a ban on snus, a form of tobacco sold in small pouches and placed between the gum and the lip.

Mr Dalli, who strenuously denied any wrongdoing and who has never been charged, moved back to his home country of Malta, leaving behind him in Brussels a heated and still unresolved debate over what he knew and did not know about the affair.

What made Mr Dalli so tired during those meetings in Cyprus, however, is now finally clear. He had flown more than 16,000 kilometers, or 10,000 miles, for a weekend in the Bahamas as part of a quest to move tens of millions of dollars.

Asked about the previously undisclosed trip on July 7-8 to a Caribbean island known for its secretive banks and sun-swept beaches, Mr Dalli said in a telephone interview Friday that he had gone to meet unidentified friends. He said he returned at least once in the summer as part of efforts to arrange financing for a philanthropic project.

Barry Connor, a Bahamas resident who rented Mr Dalli’s family a villa on the island, said he recalled being told by Mr Dalli that he planned to transfer “large amounts” of money for an unspecified venture.

Asked about sums of up to $100 million, Mr Dalli said that the money was not for him, that he was acting on behalf of other people who wanted to set up a “trust” and that the project was “very personal”.