Olaf Director General Giovanni Kessler is "simply not telling the truth" when he claims EU's anti-fraud office consistently followed all legal requirements

Heaving read the article "Olaf has 'constantly delivered' for EU taxpayers" written by Olaf's director general, it seems that Giovanni Kessler has a special relationship with facts and reality. Since 2008, the EU courts have not found Olaf in breach of any provisions concerning fundamental rights, or so he argues. However, bearing in mind the length of court cases, especially the European court of justice, it is not his work that has so far been assessed by the courts, but that of his predecessor.

Since 2011, when the current Olaf director general took office, the first problems concerning his notion of office bubbled up during the Dalli affair. But he is simply not telling the truth when he says: "Olaf has conducted its administrative investigations in respect of all the relevant legal requirements" and that the "same high standards of respect for procedural guarantees and fundamental rights were applied in the case involving former commissioner John Dalli."

We already know that the supervisory committee (its rapporteur was a judge) reported in its opinion to the institutions significant breaches of law (illegal recording of one telephone-call, illegal searches, illegal hearing of witnesses), breaches of internal rules and regulations, sloppy investigation steps, and intentional bypassing of the supervisory body. The director general of Olaf was part of the team which acted in this way. We further learned from a court hearing in Malta, that the director general of Olaf also violated significant ethical rules and legal/administrative principles both during and after his interview of a female witness in Portugal.

Moreover, we know today that the director general of Olaf did not provide the correct version of important details concerning the story that is known as the Dalli case at an in-camera hearing of the budgetary control committee in the European parliament. In further meetings he in fact stepped into his own contradictions. The entire Dalli investigation is tainted by obviously biased, flawed and, in parts, highly unethical behaviour directly conducted by Giovanni Kessler.

These flaws have been uncovered by the supervisory committee, were mentioned in the Maltese courts, have been confirmed by leading Police officials in Malta, and can be found in the publically available Olaf report. It almost appears to be of a grotesque nature what the Olaf director general has to say in that regard. His rebukes of his critics must be strongly rejected. This case did not shift "from a judicial forum into the political arena of the European parliament", as the director general wrote. It is not the investigated case which is discussed in parliament, but rather Olaf's failures.

The political scrutiny over these failures is especially important in our respectable democracy particularly when Olaf's own supervisory body raises the red flag. The director general cannot act in detachment from the law - until a court tells him that. He must respect the law as everybody has to. That is what parliament has been constantly telling him. However, unfortunately, I note with much regret that active and careful listening does not seem to have been a requirement in the director general's job description. He might also have missed, while blabbing his way throughout Europe, that in 2013 alone the European ombudsman found three instances of maladministration in Olaf. In all three cases, the ombudsman criticised Olaf for its failures to respect procedural guarantees and fundamental rights of whistleblowers.