Alarming news that the notorious High Court Sicilian Judge Corrado Carnevale, nicknamed “Sentence-killer” , condemned to 6 years in prison for aiding and abetting the Mafia in 2001 and acquitted in 2002, he will probably be reinstated, at the ripe old age of 76.
NB this entry is a re-edition of the Wikipedia entry on Carvevale, which I will be re-submitting. I am integrating the entry with information from “Gli Intoccabili” (Travaglio et Gomez)
Corrado Carnevale (May 9, 1930, Licata, Sicily) is an Italian High Court judge who became famous because of the large number of Mafia cases overturned im the Appeal Court where he was president of the Ist Penal Section frpm 1985 to 1992. He was involved in some of the worst corruption scandals in the history of the Italian Judiciary and allegedly collusion with the Mafia.
He graduated with honours from the University of Palermo at the age of 21 and came first in the competitive exam for a post of uditore Giudiziario, which he took up on the 17th December 1953. His lightening career was crowned at the age of 55, when he became the the youngest-ever President of the the Italian High Court, the Corte di cassazione.
He earned the nickname Sentence Killer (Italian ammazzasentenze) because of the high number of convictions of mafiosi overturned on appeal in his court for the slightest technicality. His section of the Corte dealt exclusively with conspiracy to commit crime, terrorism and organised crime. In fact the IV section under his Presidency also cleared the names of the perpetrators of crimes of terrorism in the 1970s. About 500 sentences were quashed under his presidency.
The long and extenuating Maxi Trial of the mid-1980s, spearheaded by Giovanni Falcone, had led to the convictions of over 200 mafiosi, of which only a few dozen were still behind bars by 1990, thanks to Carnevale’s role in the high court hearings. By the time the case came before the Cassazione, a new system had been introduced by Justice Minister Claudio Martelli whereby cases were assigned to different sections of the Court by turn, and so many life sentences of Mafia bosses were confirmed.
Carnevale was close to Salvatore Lima, a Christian Democrat politician who was believed to have been working on behalf of the Mafia, receiving bribes, votes and political favours in return for appointing Mafia-friendly judges, like Carnevale. Lima was murdered in 1992 after “outliving his usefulness”, according to Tommaso Buscetta. Carnevale was also allegedly close to Giulio Andreotti, seven-times President of Italian Government and one of the most powerful politicians of Italy since World War 2.
It was Carnevale’s involvment in the Salvo Lima case which eventually led to his resignation from office (30 October 1993). Four different collaborative witnesses, in separate testimonies, all described him as the guarantor for Cosa Nostra in Rome. Telephone interceptions between the the judge and lawyers close to him were also presented as evidence, but after two years’ investigations the Palermo public prosecutor’s office felt that there was insufficent proof to go to trial. But then more witnesses spoke up, other prosecutor’s officers in Rome, Florence and Prato became involved and, most importantly, Carnevale’s own colleagues in the High Court made damning accusations about how he had brought pressure to bear upon them to overturn Mafia sentences, even in trials which were not presided over by himself. So the case was reopened again on the 7th April 1998 and finally went to court on the 22 June 1998. Two years later Judge Carnevale was acquitted for want of sufficient evidence.
The appeal against this first judgement began on May 3rd 2001 and lasted only two months. On June 29, Carnevale was sentenced to six-years imprisonment for criminal conspiracy with the Mafia in 2001 and perpetual interdiction from holding public office.
This decision was controversially reversed by the High Court, the Cassazione, on the 30th October 2002.
On the 22nd January 2007, the IV Commission of the CSM, (Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura) passed a majority vote (three in favour, one against, two abstentions) in favour of Carnevale’s return to work as a judge, in the same role he occupied before his resignation. Two years ago, the same body had voted against allowing Carnevale to don his judge’s robes again, a ruling which was annulled by the Consiglio di Stato on the basis of a law guaranteeing the right of civil servants who have been fired because of a criminal conviction to be reinstated when the conviction is finally quashed.
The only slight problem here is that Carnevale wasn’t fired, he resigned.
It is the plenary meeting of the CSM which will take the final decision.
