WATCH | John Dalli on P.I.'s conviction: 'a prepared attack intended to destroy me'

John Dalli is interviewed by Karl Stagno Navarra. Camera: Marjo Parascandalo.

In an exclusive interview with MaltaToday appearing this Sunday, John Dalli - European Commissioner for Health and Consumer policy - describes his 2004 resignation from Lawrence Gonzi's cabinet, as part of a "prepared attack" to destroy him.

Reacting to the conviction on appeal of Joe Zahra, the private investigator whose fabricated report implicated Dalli in allegations of kickbacks on a Mater Dei tender, Dalli insists that those who masterminded his fall be investigated while "others should shoulder their political responsibility."

"We know how this clique was formed, in the press, the Sunday Times, the Times, and Where's Everybody... they ganged up together with Ivan Camilleri (then PBS journalist) and Alan Camilleri (spokesperson for Lawrence Gonzi at the time of Dalli's resignation)."

Zahra was commissioned by Dutch firm Simed, to investigate the award of a Mater Dei contract. His report was handed to the Prime Minister, who then gave the report to the Commissioner of Police to investigate. John Dalli claims he was forced to resign, when the PM told him he "could not have a minister under investigation."

John Dalli again points his finger at Times journalist Ivan Camilleri, who in 2004 was a journalist for PBS, and his brother Alan - today chairman of Malta Enterprise - who was Lawrence Gonzi's head of communications. He also pinpoints Where's Everybody, which employed private investigator Joe Zahra as a production team member, and also ran a Bondiplus edition on Dalli just days before his resignation.

Dalli describes them as "the characters who ganged up together to politically assassinate me."

He stressed that together with the directors of Simed (the company that lost the multi-million bid for the Mater Dei medical equipment and that commissioned Joe Zahra), they "must be investigated for what they did to me."

While explaining that his relationship with Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi is simply "professional", John Dalli stressed that he has remained "and will remain very active in Maltese politics."

He says: "I am a Maltese politician, and my ear remains to the ground, and I have definitely not cut my ties. I am here more often than some may think."

The full interview with Commissioner John Dalli will appear in next Sunday's edition of MaltaToday, available from all newsagents in Malta and Gozo. 

Joe Zahra, a former police sergeant assigned to Labour minister Lorry Sant, on Wednesday had a two-year prison sentence reduced to 17 months and confirmed on appeal.

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.