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The former head of OLAF in the EU is sentenced to a year in prison: How Romana saved Vlahut from the investigation about the villa in Lundre, Tirana

2023-09-23 11:55:01Aktualitet SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
The former head of OLAF in the EU is sentenced to a year in prison: How Romana
Giovanni Kessler and Romana Vlahutin

The former head of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), Giovanni Kessler, was sentenced last week by a Belgian court to a one-year suspended prison sentence. He was found guilty of illegal investigative practices.

The Vlahutin case

Kessler, from the party of Federica Mogherini and close to her, declared that there was no legal violation in the purchase of the villa for the residence of the former ambassador of the European Union in Tirana.

The villa in question is located in Lundre near Tirana and was bought by the EU at three times the market price.

At that time, the head of the European Delegation in Tirana, Romana Vlahutin, was accused of violating procedures and abusing her duties. MEPs like Ingeborg Graessle, head of the budget committee, called it a "shocking scandal with consequences for the credibility of the EU" and asked for written information. This file was later archived by Kessler.

Vlahutin escaped criminal investigation, but was fired by the European Commission in early 2023 for various violations.

Sentencing

The Belgian court convicted Kessler on charges that he wiretapped a European Commissioner as part of an investigation.

He was given a one-year suspended prison sentence for his treatment of an investigation involving John Dalli, who was the EU's health commissioner. Dalli resigned in October 2012 amid allegations that his top aide sought bribes from the tobacco industry.

Dalli has loudly proclaimed his innocence and pointed to the decision as a partial justification.

Kessler said he plans to appeal the decision. "I have always acted transparently and with the intention of finding the truth about the allegation, which was a very serious allegation," Kessler told POLITICO.

"Dalligate" threatens to reignite tensions over a politicized domestic enforcement system.

Dalli had been working on a rewrite of the EU's Tobacco Products Directive when his aide Silvio Zammit was accused of demanding a €60 million bribe from a Swedish tobacco company to overturn an EU ban on snus, a type of smokeless tobacco.

The scandal resulted in Dalli's ouster. While he was accused of failing to disclose several meetings with tobacco lobbyists, an OLAF report on the matter found no direct link between Dall and the bribe request. But Kessler claimed there was "ambiguous circumstantial evidence" that Dalli knew about it.

However, within a few years, Kessler himself came under scrutiny and Belgian authorities began to look into claims that the Dalligate investigation was poorly executed and politically motivated.

After years of delay, the European Commission agreed in 2016 to lift Kessler's immunity. This opened the way for Belgian prosecutors to question him over allegations that he secretly recorded witnesses in the case without informing all parties, a crime under Belgian law./BW


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