John Dalli, the European Union's health commission, resigned his post earlier this week after a fraud investigation, the Nature News Blog reports. An inquiry by the EU anti-fraud office, called OLAF, found that a Maltese businessman tried to use his contacts with Dalli to influence tobacco regulation for financial gain, the BBC adds. The Nature News Blog notes that the Olaf report has not been made publicly available, though a statement from the European Commission says that it "did not find any conclusive evidence of the direct participation of Mr. Dalli but did consider that he was aware of these events."
Dalli has denied the charges. He tells the New Europe that he was not aware of the events. "Even though the OLAF report states that there is no evidence of my direct participation in these events and that the decision making process of the Commission Services had not been influenced in any way, OLAF concluded that I was aware of these events basing themselves only on circumstantial evidence," Dalli says.