Dalli reported blogs, not hacking attempt, to police

Over a month ago, European Commissioner John Dalli asked the Police to investigate a series of anonymous blogs that had attacked him some time in February when his name was being floated as a possible candidate for the party leadership.

Dalli confirmed the news with MaltaToday this morning.

"I went to the Police to report these blogs. At the time of the blogs, there was also a person going around with cards in hand urging people to read these blogs," Dalli said.

"I have an indication of who is behind these attacks, but I want the Police to get to them."

Meanwhile, this e-newspaper has sent questions to Police Commissioner John Rizzo over the case.

Dalli has also said that he has an email correspondence in hand that shows that "organised group directed by someone" are behind the blogs.

During the 25-minute teleconference he had with the PN executive on Tuesday that cleared Richard Cachia Caruana of any "collusion" with Labour, Dalli read out the correspondence, omitting the names.

He has reportedly passed on this information directly to the Prime Minister.

During the same meeting, Dalli also revealed that on Wednesday, 11 July, he was specifically asked by Cachia Caruana to issue a statement in his favour, but that he declined.

He then said that on Thursday, 12 July - the next day - he found that his email domain had been hacked in an attempt at replicating his email traffic, and claimed the hacking originated from an IP address that was directly linked to the group fomenting anonymous attacks on him.

MaltaToday could not establish whether these two observations were linked.

Dalli today also confirmed with MaltaToday that he has so far not asked the Police to investigate the hacking attempt.

Among other information he gave to Lawrence Gonzi, The European Commissioner believes that PN officials had "collaborated" with Labour in a bid to inflict damage upon him through the Zahra report.

Private investigator Joe Zahra had been found guilty, and jailed for 17 months, of having fabricated a report alleging corruption during the procurement of a multi-million euro Mater Dei contract - the same report that had ousted John Dalli from his post as foreign minister in July 2004.

Dalli was 'politely' asked to resign by Gonzi, who - basing himself on the contents of the damning but fabricated report (which implied that Dalli's brother Sebastian was in cahoots with the director of contracts in a network of kickbacks from the successful bidder Inso SpA) - had specifically told him: "I cannot have a minister under investigation."

Dalli spent the next years in the government backbench, occasionally expressing his personal view of the Gonzi administration in a newspaper column. Then he was 'rehabilitated' by Gonzi himself, just ahead of the 2008 general election, denouncing the fabrications of Zahra, and announcing that Dalli was to be his advisor on financial affairs.

By the time he was re-elected and given the social policy super-ministry, Dalli was once again riding the crest of a new wave of backbench disillusion. And it was at this moment that Gonzi decided to appoint the minister as European Commissioner.

The whole Richard Cachia Caruana's case, and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando's request to Dalli to testify in the case, has rekindled Dalli's memory of what he calls was a "political assassination" by people close to Lawrence Gonzi.