John Dalli’s arraignment deferred to November

The arraignment of former European Commissioner John Dalli on charges related to a bribery attempt has been deferred to November, The Malta Independent is informed.

Dalli is set to face charges over an alleged attempt by his aide to solicit a €60 million bribe back when he was European Commissioner for Health.

It was PN MP Jason Azzopardi who last week revealed that Dalli is to be arraigned.

The arraignment was expected to take place tomorrow, but this newsroom now understands that it has been deferred by the courts.

John Dalli says the charges are part of a campaign mounted against him in the past weeks.

One of Dalli’s associates at the time had allegedly asked for a €60 million bribe from a tobacco company to help overturn a ban in the EU on snus. Dalli was forced to quit from the european Commission in 2012 as a result of this, after an investigation by OLAF - the EU’s anti-fraud office, had uncovered the bribery attempt.

After Dalli resigned from the Commission in 2012, Joseph Muscat (once elected) had appointed him as a consultant on health reform.

Former police commissioner John Rizzo had said that the police had enough evidence to prosecute Dalli in 2013. Rizzo had told the Daphne public inquiry that he had been dismissed from the post a week after telling then police minister Manuel Mallia about the plans to prosecute Dalli. Rizzo’s successor, Peter Paul Zammit, later declared that there was not enough evidence to prosecute Dalli.