The Dragonara Casino has strongly denied and refuted the entire content of the article entitled “Maltese Minister reported to be pushing Dragonara Casino interest in Taormina kursaal”, published in last week’s edition of The Malta Independent on Sunday.

In a reply to the article, the Dragonara Casino states that, “Neither the Dragonara Casino Ltd nor Groupe Lucien Barriere have ever expressed any interest in running a casino in Taormina. Dragonara Casino Ltd has never asked any Maltese minister to intervene or help in any way whatsoever.

“Dragonara Casino Ltd considers this article vexatious, erroneous and totally baseless. It is highly regrettable that the said article was published without validating the veracity of its content, that the manager of a competing casino operator and a bidder in the tendering process for the award of the Dragonara concession were provided with a golden opportunity to denigrate and question the integrity of the Dragonara Casino and that no contact was ever made with Dragonara Casino for comments or reactions.

“Dragonara Casino refutes all allegations made in the said article and denies ever having made any approaches or has any intentions of making a bid for the Taormina Kursaal or to meet the Taormina mayor. It is a blatant lie to state that a Maltese minister (unnamed) has been pushing Dragonara Casino interests in Taormina Kursaal.”