Malta High Court Says AG Taking Too Long to Prosecute Bribery Case

With his case going on for six years, Malta's high court said the human rights of restaurant owner Silvio Zammit on charges of seeking a 60-billion euro bribe from a Swedish tobacco company were breached because the country's Attorney General was endlessly pursuing evidence.

Prosecutors said in 2012 he asked snus manufacturer Swedish Match and the European Smokeless Tobacco Council (ESTOC) for the money so he could try to have the then-European Commissioner for Health John Dalli – also from Malta – lift a European Union ban on smokeless tobacco.

The scandal forced Dalli to resign after the European Anti-Fraud Agency, OLAF, said he knew his name was being dropped by Zammit to solicit the bribe.

The Court of Constitutional Appeal said that lower courts hearing evidence being brought against Zammit could not delay the inability of the AG to summon a witness living in Belgium, Malta Today reported on the case.

The AG has refused to declare his evidence closed after the last witness refused to testify in the bribery case. No charges were filed against Dalli, even though former police commissioner John Rizzo said there was enough evidence to go after him.

Zammit said the prosecution declared that the only remaining witness, Inge Delfosse, was refusing to travel to Malta and testify as she risked incriminating herself.

Delfosse was an employee of the smokeless tobacco lobby ESTOC, who recorded Zammit on the telephone making his second request for a bribe, used by OLAF.

The case had been reported on by Daphne Caruana Galizia, an investigative journalist murdered while looking into scandals and corruption reaching the highest offices in the country. She reported after one of the earlier court hearings that Gayle Kimberley, Swedish Match's counsel, called her client and told them that she had met Dalli and over the bribe request.

Johan Gabrielsson of Swedish Match expressed his shock at the request and then flew to Malta to meet Zammit, who she called Dalli's “personal henchman and go-between” in the matter.

She reported that, “Zammit justified the request for 60 million euros by saying that Commissioner Dalli was taking 'a big risk which could damage his political career.'”