Dalligate: Under-attack Kessler urges Malta to publish Olaf report

Updated 1.20 p.m.  A German MEP Inge Graessle has described the situation at the EU anti fraud agency OLAF as “a fire out of control”, after an audit report revealed serious irregularities with the way the investigation on former Commissioner John Dalli was handled. “It seems we have a fire out of control here,” Dr Graessle said, urging fellow MEPs to “stop downplaying” these things. She was commenting on a report by the supervisory committee responsible for overseeing the work of OLAF, the agency responsible for the investigation involving Mr Dalli. The report was discussed at a hearing of the European Parliament’s budget control commission this morning. The report is not public but it is understood that the committee questioned the legal basis of how OLAF obtained mobile phone records of the protagonists in the case. Dr Graessle placed her criticism directly on the doorstep of the Director-General Giovanni Kessler, who had a leading role in the Dalli investigation, saying that “these are not the working methods of OLAF but of the Director General”. “The situation in OLAF is rotten,” she insisted. Dutch MEP Jan Mulder went a step further, saying that he could not understand why...