Giovanni Kessler hunted corruption on behalf of the EU in the anti-corruption agency OLAF. Now he himself is sentenced to shake bars, for illegal wiretapping during the investigation of the EU Commission’s bribery scandal surrounding the Swedish snus eleven years ago.
The Italian Kessler was sentenced on Friday by a court in Brussels to one year in prison, reports the newspaper L’Echo.
Kessler is convicted of having, without the necessary permission, recorded a telephone conversation with a close employee of the EU’s then health commissioner John Dalli in the summer of 2012.
– The ends do not justify the means. There are rules that apply to everyone, ordinary citizens as well as the head of OLAF, the judge said according to L’Echo when the trial ended in June.
The trial is still ongoing
John Dalli was forced to resign from the European Commission in the fall of 2012 following reports that the close employee would have offered Swedish Match an opening for snus sales throughout the EU – in exchange for a compensation of 60 million euros.
Dalli, former Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs in his native Malta, has always maintained his innocence. A trial surrounding the tangle is still ongoing in Malta, although his named close associate died in early 2022.
Kessler was head of OLAF between 2010 and 2017.