This is what Bahamas landlord Barry Connor reported to OLAF on 26 November
Remember that at the time he had no idea about Dalli’s weekend trip in early July, and was speaking here about his later trips in late August and early September.
His email was sent to Eduardo Cano Romera, head of Unit A1 at the European Commission’s European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).
Mary Swan first had talks with me and then she said that John was the man behind everything. I had talks with John regarding him being able to use an old established Bahamas Trust controlled by me.
Mary Swan and John told me that they could not open bank accounts due to the requirements of the local banks. John was saying that the Trust could be sectioned or some words to that effect so that his funds would not be mixed with current trust assets.
He told me that his 2 daughters would be arriving soon in Nassau to work this out with the Trustee and that they would need to take the control of the “Trust Protector”.
John indicated to me that the amounts that would be transferred would be in excess of US$100 mil. I was asked by John to talk to the Trustee to make the initial contact prior to his daughters arrival.
Mary Swan and John told me that the funds would be coming from Chase Manhatten Bank in NY and would be clean. I was told earlier by Mary Swan that funds would be coming from a bank in Dubai.
These talks took place just before they all left in early Sept. John and Mary said that his daughters could be arriving within days to meet with the Trustee.
After John left I had a meeting with the Trustee and reported this to Mary Swan. Things slowed down and I was constantly told that everything was being worked out.
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This is what Martin Zuch – who seems to live in Verbier, Switzerland (not far from Courmayeur, Italy, and Martigny, Switzerland, and the French border in the Mont Blanc region – nice area for a chateau) – thinks he is doing in Africa.
It seems that Mr. Dalli is suggesting that the philantropic connection between his travels to the Bahamas and Africa has something to do with this man, even if Mr. Zuch only acquired the shareholding of Tyre Limited on 30 May 2013 but retrospectively from 31 December 2012.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_Ngr6L-Fug
This video was posted on Youtube on 11 February 2013, so it can be safely assumed that it is very recent. On that date, Mr. Zuch had not yet officially become shareholder of Tyre Limited, the company which in 2010-2011 traded in COPPER (and gold?) and which in 2012 rented a villa in the Bahamas under a contract signed by Claire Gauci Borda, Dalli’s daughter.
There is a lot of interesting information in this video, especially about the failure of Zuch’s TWO banana farms in Zambia and that there is a relationship between bananas and the price of copper, which I am not sure I understood.
Mr. Zuch seems to be afflicted by too many plagues in his life, so I cannot see how he can inspire any confidence in anyone who has to listen to his rant.
After minute 18, the interviewer was getting a bit agitated.
See the important question at 18.19. The reply was that he has spent (and lost) 3.6 million dollars out of his funds on these ‘charitable’ projects.
I’m left with one important question. If he is the one who Dalli implies in the charity business in Africa, where are the hundreds of millions of funds for the Africa charitable projects going to come from, considering that this gentleman’s African farms are gone and it is not clear that he has any funds coming from anywhere else?
I must say, after watching this video, I’m not transferring the billions of dollars I have in my Swiss accounts to Mr. Zuch as yet.
One final observation to the attention of the clowns. In this case, Mr. Zuch was “facing the Canon,” who is the journalist/interviewer. A few weeks ago at Castille, it was the journalists who were made to face the canons.
Oh it’s OK now Joseph is satisfied with Dalli’s explanation so let’s move on.
Great, just great the man has shamed all Malta worldwide but Joseph is satisfied that this is all a WORLD conspiracy.
When and where is the next mass by Dun Gorg to thank the Lord for the closure of this case due to be held?
I have been reading up all your recent posts. They’re all simply fantastic.
This Bahamas story is what newspapers were invented for and yet, Maltese newspapers have let us down so badly. We have resorted to reading foreign newspapers to get information on this very Maltese affair.
If Maltese newspapers had any understanding about what attracts readers, they would be splashing stories and interviews like the ones you have been writing all over their front pages.
Tonio Fenech’s home-made clock got more column inches than John Dalli’s Bahamas trips. For shame.
Even when they do report, you get the feeling that they’re trying to defend John Dalli, and by default, the government, more than anything else.
One gets the impression that they’re only reporting about the story because the rest of the world is doing so and there’s only so much burying-head-in-sand that they can get away with.
And daphnecaruanagalizia.com is a ONE-WOMAN OPERATION RUN IN HER FREE TIME.
If they had any sense, newspapers would be banging on your door offering you huge sums of money to have your exclusive stories splashed over their front pages.
If it weren’t for this blog, the whole Dalli affair will be swept under the carpet in no time at all. As things stand now, those who rely on mainstream media for news are none the wiser and many of them actually think that John Dalli was really running a charity.
Well done Daphne, I can’t thank you enough for this blog.
This is all the more shocking because John Dalli was Malta’s Minister of Finance – something many people have forgotten, seeing that his more recent (disgraced) position was that of EU commissioner.
I also expect Simon Busuttil to look into the matter and issue a statement accordingly.
With all the scum slowly rising to the surface, I – and all those who had put our trust in the Nationalist Party – deserve some kind of an explanation as to how all this went on “unchecked”. Failing that, I can only draw my own conclusion on the matter, and it’s not a pretty one at that.
And yet everyone derided Sant’s incessant talk of barunijiet.
I wonder whether Joseph Muscat has ever heard of the Maltese expression ‘Ma min rajtek, xebbahtek’:
“Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had a one hour meeting with Former EU Commissioner John Dalli in which they discussed the latest controversy over his trips to the Bahamas and agreed there would be “no change” to his consultancy position at Mater Dei.”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130706/local/dalli.476870
We were not told where this meeting took place.
It should have taken place at the office of the Prime Minister in Castille.
But from the looks of it – and how this news has been published the day after without the press knowing that this meeting was taking place – it is possible this was one of those meetings which Joseph Muscat organises at 10.00 pm – like his visit to a Magistrate in Siggiewi some years ago. Maybe this time he went to Dalli’s Portomaso apartment.
“Mr Dalli said he had gone over the whole story with the Prime Minister and even showed him some documents which he was unable to give to the press due to “professional secrecy”. (The Times)
Professional secrecy should include the prime minister. I think that you can only give such information on court order.
We buy gold.
Taken from The Times of Malta’s latest report:
‘Mr Dalli said he had gone over the whole story with the Prime Minister and even showed him some documents which he was unable to give to the press due to “professional secrecy”’.
One wonders whether those documents were stuffed in a brown envelope just like Lorry Sant’s ‘documents’.
We really, really need to know more about John Dalli’s relationship with Joseph Muscat. Any other prime minister would have by now done what José Manuel Barroso did and thrown John Dalli to the wolves.
So the cheapskate even tried to claim his Bahamas trip as a travel expense, despite hiding the fact from the Commission and his own staff, who then found out about the trip by chance.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Former-commissioner-says-Bahamas-trip-exploited-for-political-hype-20130706
Dalli claims his cabinet were informed of his private trip, but not before it took place, specifically because he erroneously included his Bahamas ticket stub with all his travel receipts for the EC’s verification. Since the private flight could not be refunded, Dalli was handed the stub back.