Lorenzo Cesa, national secretary of the Udc (Unione dei Democratici Cristiani e Democratici di Centro – Union of Democratic Christians, right of centre and fairly homophobic party – “No Pacs yes to the family, no to gay marriage”) came under investigation by the Catanzaro Public Prosecutor's office last March for criminal conspiracy and fraud. According to Public prosecutor Luigi De Magistris, the European MP was allegedly, between 2001-04, one of the «promoters and organisers» of fraudulent use of EU funding to the detriment of the Union and the Calabria Region, to the tune of 5 billion old lire. Cesa had been a partner in the Spb Optical Disk srl, a firm specialising in the reproduction and sale of DVDs. Other partners, engineer Giovanbattista Papello, former deputy commissioner for environmental emergencies in Calabria, and Fabio Schettini, segretary of former Minister Franco Frattini, also came under investigation. They were supposed to have been investing monies obtained from the EEC Por progamme (Programma operativo regionale) in Calabrian industry.
The Corriere della Sera reported that a factory supposed to be built in the Mangone district of Cosenza for the production of DVDs and other digital material, creating about forty jobs, was never finished. According to the Catanzaro carabinieri, only a part of it was built and nothing was ever manufactured. An official witness statement revealed, furthermore, that although that factory never went into production, it had already accumulated debts of 1,6000,000 euros.
«I was surprised to see that the firm had already successfully been given the go-ahead in spite of the fact that the building still wasn’t finished. The roof was missing and there was no connection to the sewage system».
The new owner explained to police investigators that the «machine for the manufacture of plastic packaging for CDs also appears to have passed its tests” although the machine «hadn’t even been unpacked».
It was the «Poseidon» enquiry into illegal financing for sewage treatment in Calabria which had originally led to the notification of investigation against Cesa. In May 2005 the former President of the Region Giuseppe Chiaravalloti and the regional environmental chief Domenico Basile had been among those under investigation.
According to the prosecution, the involvement of Cesa began with a series of companies «created ad hoc to favour commercial and business operations».
At the end of 2004 Cesa, Papello e Schettini had decided to sell their shares in Spb Optical Disk and, according to the prosecutor’s reconstruction of facts, offer them to Salvatore Di Ganci, a 59 year old Sicilian, brother of two men already sentenced to prison terms and former business partners of Enrico Nicoletti, the “cashier” of the Magliana gang (arrested in 1996 for corruption of a high court judge) and owner of Data General Security, a giant in the field of telephone security. The very firm that in in 2006 was at the centre of investigations not only by the Catanzaro Public Prosecutor’s office but also the Milan office dealing with illegal spying of politicians
Pm Luigi De Magistris collaborated with his colleagues in Milan to identify possible connections between the two enquiries.
In his recent book “Onorevole Wanted“, Peter Gomez and Marco Travaglio confirm that during a seach of Giovanbattista Papello’s house, a massonic apron and illegal recordings of DS secretary Piero Fassino, Pietro Folena (RC) and the president of Anas Vincenzo Pozzi were found.
The fun continued for Cesa in December. On 16 Dicembre 2006 the Espresso reported that he had also received notification of the opening of an internal enquiry into two and a half million euros of EEC funds awarded to the Calabrese company Digitaleco by Olaf, (European anti-fraud commission). The investigation, which also involves Movimondo, has recently been at the centre of heated political debate because the NGO had been presided over by the present Foreign Undersecretary Donato di Santo, to whose public defence during parliamentary question time Foreign Secretary Massimo D’Alema leapt. Little wonder that Cesa was so interested in Olaf. No sooner was he elected in 2004 than he began to busy himself with the its function and aims. He wrote: “I will surely do everything I can within the limits of my mandate, to ensure that OLAF is an effective tool for legality, that it is the first to repect the law and legality and I will be very strict, within the limits of my mandate, about reporting eventual lapses. But I will also do my utmost to prevent OLAF from becoming a dangerous toy in the hands of those who wish to play, in their own interests and against the interests of law and order for all citizens.”
He needn’t worry about Olaf being effective: the number of prosecutions is ludicrously small. In June 2006 Mr Ashley Mote testified before a Select Committee on European Union that “OLAF is a deeply compromised organisation. Its President, Dr Bruner, has just been reappointed in the most curious circumstances. I have documentary evidence about those circumstances and I have questions at the moment in front of Commissioner Kallas from Estonia who is supposedly responsible for the fight against fraud and corruption. Those questions remain unanswered about the reappointment of Dr Bruner. Whilst he has been President of OLAF for the last seven years, OLAF has not yet succeeded in a single successful prosecution and the recovery of the monies involved. Not one.”
Cesa is just one of the many UDC politicians to be investigated for criminal activities, mafia-connected and otherwise. Of course, as politicians left, right and centre, and with very few exceptions always hasten to point out, all men (and women) are innocent until proven guilty. In Italy they are often innocent afterwards too.
[...] He did however state that the bitterest moment of his career was when the investigation Poseidon, which he had been working on tirelessly for years, was taken away from him by his own superior, [...]