Maltese businessman organised two meetings between Dalli and lobbyists - OLAF head

The Director-General of OLAF, the EU's anti-fraud office, Giovanni Kessler, said this afternoon that the Maltese businessman at the heart of the allegations which led to John Dalli's resignation had organised two meetings between Mr Dalli and lobbyists from the snus (tobacco) companies. "Two meetings took place, not directly with the snus companies but let us say with lobbyists of these companies," Mr Kesseler said in Brussels.   "He (Mr Dalli) was aware that a person close to him was using his influence... he did not attempt to dissociate himself ...he was aware of this but he did not do anything to prevent, stop or report this," he said.  He said that the sum requested by the Maltese businessman to arrange the meetings was 'rather conspicious, gross, substantial'. "We carried out a comprehensive, thorough, swift investigation making full use of all our investigative capacity, using all the legal tools for these investigations...we used all of them with no regards, no immunities...it was a full investigation, traditional investigation...and as all agencies do we put all the evidence together and we drew conclusions connecting all the pieces of evidence and making ...