Election duties pulled deputy police chief away from Dalli investigation

Preparations for the 2013 general elections pulled former deputy police commissioner Joe Cachia away from the investigations into the Dalligate affair.

Cachia, today the head of the Police Academy, formed part of a four-man team investigating allegations of bribery and trading in influence.

“Election duties pulled me away from the investigation in January 2013, when the electoral campaign had started,” he said, adding that he last investigated the case a month before, in December 2012.

Cachia was testifying before the privileges committee which is investigating Joseph Muscat’s complaint against Opposition leader Simon Busuttil, who in October accused the Prime Minister of interfering in the police investigation against former EU commissioner John Dalli.

Questioned by Nationalist MP Chris Said, Cachia said he was asked to take part in the investigations in October 2012, when former police commissioner John Rizzo asked him to assist him with the interrogations that were held in Rizzo’s office.

The investigation, originally carried out by EU anti-fraud agency OLAF, had been carried out afresh by Rizzo, Cachia, Michael Cassar and Angelo Gafà.

“Rizzo was of the idea that a fresh investigation should take place and that’s what we did,” Cachia said. “The investigations concluded that there were reasons enough to arraign Silvio Zammit and John Dalli.”

READ MORE Rizzo wanted to arraign Dalli separately – former assistant commissioner

Dalli resigned on 16 October 2012 on the strength of a covering letter to the OLAF report, following a four-month investigation by the EU’s anti-fraud unit, led by its chief Giovanni Kessler.

Cachia said that, after the investigative team had flown to Brussels, they had gathered at the office of the Attorney General and decided that charges should be pressed against Zammit and Dalli.

Cachia officially retired from the Police Force in January 2014 but had started his pre-retirement leave in October 2013. He told the committee that former police commissioner Peter Paul Zammit did not involve him in the Dalligate investigation between April 2013 and October 2013.

“We may have talked about it as a matter of fact but we never held any official meetings.”