The EU's anti-fraud unit and the Maltese police 'suggested' to Swedish Match's public affairs director Johan Gabrielsson that he stick to a public version of events that had already been belied in investigations they carried out, into a €60 million bribe requested by a Maltese businessman allegedly to influence EU tobacco laws.

In a recording of a conversation that Gabrielsson held with Green MEP José Bové earlier this week, the man whom Silvio Zammit asked for €60 million to reverse the EU Ban on snus, said that Gayle Kimberley had "lied" about a second meeting she had had with John Dalli in 2012.

It was this crucial meeting that formed the basis for the "unambiguous circumstantial evidence" OLAF said they had on the former EU commissioner for health and consumer affairs, who resigned on 16 October 2012 after being presented with a covering letter from EC president José Manuel Barroso claiming he had been aware of Zammit's attempts to solicit the bribe.

FULL audio recording

"It was only during the long investigations with OLAF that [it turned out] that Gayle was not in the second meeting... [OLAF] had clearly already revealed this in investigations," Gabrielsson told Bové.

Gabrielsson said he was asked by OLAF to conceal his knowledge that the meeting never took place when he appeared before the European Parliament on 9 January.

"We had been told by OLAF that an investigation was going on in Malta, 'so keep to your version. Say what you have told us, what your version is, because there is a Maltese criminal investigation that should not be disturbed'. And this was what the Maltese police said as well.

"They said 'please be careful how you actually deal with this information. Try not to disturb the information'. The story I knew was already made official, which is why I took the decision to say the story the way I heard it."

Gabrielsson also told Bové, as the MEP revealed yesterday in a press conference at the European Parliament, that Kimberley had lied about being present for a meeting in which Dalli allegedly left the room, before Zammit requested €60 million to reverse the ban on snus.

"I know she wasn't in the second meeting, but that I found out when OLAF told me. Now I know, because... OLAF told me," Gabrielsson says.

Gabrielsson told Bové that Kimberley had already informed him of her meeting with Dalli by telephone on 10 February 2012, and on 13 February when he arrived in Malta where she met him at Silvio Zammit's kiosk in Sliema.

"She said she had been to the meeting and she told me, 'You should be surprised to know the Commissioner has studied the case well. He understands that you have the science on your side, but this is a political question, a question of emotions, a question of someone who must stand up and make noise, otherwise nobody will give a damn."

Referring to the commissioner, Kimberley claimed Dalli said "don't forget what I did in the GMO case, I can steer a process in the right direction very strongly".

"Gayle wrote that in her first report," Gabrielsson told Bové. "That Dalli had stated that, if there were the right conditions or the right environment and had the science on his side, he can pick a fight. But then she was asked to leave the meeting, or Dalli had gone out - I don't know - and then Zammit told her that Dalli wants to be compensated for this, because otherwise his political career would be over."

Kimberley relayed this alleged fabrication to Gabrielsson at Peppi's kiosk as they waited to meet Silvio Zammit, the businessman who had set up the initial meeting with Dalli.

"I knew what this was about, and I believe she was a bit embarrassed that money was being asked for. At that moment, Mr Zammit came in and told me the same story. He was happy, smiling... offering me heart medication and to be prepared, and told me the Commissioner wants €60 million. And he confirmed what Gayle told me. So I was told by two persons the same story."

Gabrielsson-Kimberley-Zammit connection

Silvio Zammit had previously already come to the attention of Swedish Match because he was a regular online customer of large consignments of snus, having established himself as the main retailer of the snuff tobacco for the Swedish community in Malta, which is mainly employed in the remote gaming sector.

The sale of snus in countries outside Sweden is banned under EU laws, and John Dalli's revision of the Tobacco Products Directive was expected to keep the ban in force.

When Swedish Match stopped selling snus online, after the Finnish Cancer Society pushed for smuggling charges to be brought against one such retailer, Zammit reportedly boarded a Ryanair flight to Norkopping, in Sweden, "to fill up a big bag full of snus", Gabrielsson told Bové.

Gabrielsson, formerly a European Commission official, already knew Gayle Kimberley from her time as a member of the European Council's legal services, who enjoyed a friendship with his wife.

"I knew that Malta was a very small place... my initial contact was an innocent one. I didn't know to whom she was connected," Gabrielsson says. "We had tried to get meetings with Dalli, but we were ignored. We met with the chief of cabinet but that's as far as we got."

Kimberley was then employed at the Lotteries and Gaming Authority, where she is believed to have gained access to Silvio Zammit through a mutual friend and co-worker Iosif Galea.

Kimberley has already told a Maltese court - contrary to previous versions of the story as relayed to OLAF - that she held a 40-minute meeting with John Dalli at his Portomaso office. A second meeting requested by Swedish Match did not take place.

She then asked Silvio Zammit whether Dalli would appoint a liaison officer from his staff, but Zammit came back saying that any dealings would have to be done through him.

Zammit, a long-time Nationalist activist who was even elected deputy mayor of Sliema, was formerly a canvasser for Dalli on the tenth district.

It was after this request that Gabrielsson came to Malta to meet Zammit, who made the request for €60 million. The company declined to pay and stopped all dealings with him, finally reporting the matter to the European Commission's secretary-general Catherine Day.