Private investigator Joe Zahra sentenced to 17 months in prison on appeal

Joe Zahra, a former police sergeant assigned to Labour minister Lorry Sant whose fabricated report into corruption was instrumental in the resignation of a government minister, has had a two-year prison sentence reduced to 17 months.

The Court of Criminal Appeal said the first court had not applied article 17(h) of the Criminal Code, which meant Zahra was to be punished with the graver offence of the eight he had been found guilty of.

Zahra entered prison yesterday, MaltaToday was told, and may serve a minimum of 11 months with remission.

The investigator, who at the time of the crime in 2006 was a member of the Bondiplus production team, was found guilty of fabricating a report that alleged kickbacks being wired from an Italian firm, to the daughter of the director of the government contracts department, and the brother of European Commissioner John Dalli.

Specifically, Zahra fabricated his ‘private investigator’s’ report implicating Dalli, then a government minister, in a corruption scandal around a Mater Dei hospital tender. The report claimed meetings between the daughter of Joe Spiteri, the director of contracts, and the minister’s brother Sebastian Dalli, took place in Italy with an Inso director to collect a €2.3 million kickback.

Zahra had been commissioned by Dutch firm Simed, which had claimed irregularity in the way the medical equipment tender had been awarded to Inso.

Minister’s resignation
The report is also believed to have been crucial in the resignation of John Dalli, then a foreign minister who had just lost a leadership battle against Lawrence Gonzi.

Dalli was already facing accusations in the Labour press of having used his ministerial influence with the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (Irisl) to appoint his son-in-law’s firm as their shipping agent. The Times also published details of the foreign ministry’s purchase of airline tickets from Tourist Resources Ltd, which had ties to Dalli’s daughter.

When Dalli resigned on 3 July 2004, the prime minister had not yet presented the Zahra report to the police for investigation. But Dalli has repeatedly claimed that Gonzi had informed him he “could not have a minister under investigation.”

Upon accepting his resignation, Gonzi told the press he had found no wrongdoing on the Irisl allegations and that the purchase of airline tickets from ministries was a procurement matter to be evaluated by the Auditor General.

Zahra was also a key component in Lou Bondì’s team of Bondiplus, whose services for production house Where’s Everybody were allegedly stopped pending the criminal charges.

Zahra has had a chequered history: in 1995 he was revealed to have sent nothing less than Italy’s ‘clean hands’ (mani pulite) bribery prosecutions haywire, when he sent false information to the Italian magazine Panorama.

The information, documenting the offshore interests of the firm Sapri Broker in Malta, was handed to Rome magistrate Gianfranco Mantelli, only to realise six months later that Zahra had misled the entire investigation.