On Wednesday 17 ottobre at 11.00 in the Law faculty of the University of Bologna, ( via Zamboni 22) public prosecutor Giancarlo Caselli will be talking on the subject of law and terrorism. Caselli played a vital role in investigating and bring to trial Red Brigade Terrorism in the 1970′s, an experience he will be bringing to bear in his talk. You can download the audio here.
Archive for October, 2007
Giancarlo Caselli in Bologna
Monday, October 15th, 2007Pourquoi pas?
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007Ansa reports that pm De Magistris has gone back to work in Catanzaro with a vengeance, pushing the accelerator on the Why Not investigation into the illegal use of public funding. He is reported to have held a meeting with consultants in connection with the people whose names appear in the investigation, including contacts between Clemente Mastella and entrepreneur Antonio Saladino, key figure in the enquiry.
Clemente is very busy too, in his own little way, taking part in cooking shows, celebrating the invasion of the Americas by C. Columbus and appearing on Italian talk shows via satellite (umpteenth episode about the Mastella – De Magistris case on The Insect’s Porta a porta (“door to door”.) All of which will further world peace and democracy.
Mastella’s latest ultimatum to the Government is “If you don’t like me lump me. We can have a general election. You either defend me or I get out”
WHY NOT????
The digital divide petition
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007Most Italian politicians and many journalists haven’t got the foggiest idea about the real importance of Beppe Grillo’s V-Day. Instead of wasting time and energy being offended and insulting peoples’ intelligence by comparing Grillo to Mussolini, they should be taking a more serious look at ICT. Grillo is successful first of all because he is a brilliant comedian, secondly because he comes up with a lot of information (rather than bla-bla opinions) and thirdly because he uses webtools intelligently, something that hardly anyone in the media has bothered to mention.
Of course blogs, used by averagely intelligent people, are a serious threat to traditional media, (and therefore to traditional politics) and have the power to undermine the present RAI-Mediaset duopoly.
This petition is worth looking at and perhaps you might like to sign it!
Interview with Luigi de Magistris
Monday, October 8th, 2007You can hear an interview with de Magistris on the Radio Radicale site
De Magistris hearing put off until December
Monday, October 8th, 2007Not unsurprisingly, the disciplinary hearing of public prosecutors De Magistris e Lombardi has been put off until the 17th December. Ansa and Reuters report that the postponement is due to the fact that last Friday Minister of Justice Mastella made further complaints about de Magistris, which the commission needs time to examine. Among the fresh accusations was de Magistris’ “relaxed relationship with the press” and his “complete lack of regard for discretion while conducting investigations”, especially as far as the position of Romano Prodi in the “Why Not” investigation is concerned. Both the Prosecutor General and the defence have asked for the change of date. “I am very determined and very serene. I will make further comments only after the 17th December”, said de Magistris as he left the CSM offfices,
After the Annozero program last Thursday Mastella complained about being “lynched” by the media and threatened to ask that the Senate to pass a motion of no confidence in the State TV Board of Directors. At the moment he is living it up in the US as Guest-of-Honour at the Columbus Day celebrations (crucially important to world peace). Mastella heads a so-called “contingent of dignitaries” (sic) - Italian politicians taking part in the celebration. How much this freebie is costing the Italian taxpayer no one says
These are the same politicians who think they have the right to dictate to public television authorities what they can and cannot broadcast; if information aired on TV is not to their lordships’ liking, the journalists must be hauled over the coals and/or the program censored; if a public prosecutor digs up any unwholesome titbits about the ruling caste, she or he must be silenced. This is Italy in a nutshell.
Support de Magistris
Friday, October 5th, 2007
Mastella strikes again
Friday, October 5th, 2007Controversial Rai2 TV program Annozero hosted by controversial anchorman Michele Santoro (removed from the RAI after Silvio Berlusconi’s infamous “Bulgarian diktat”) this week zoomed into the “case” of public prosecutor Luigi di Magistris, currently in the public eye for having uncovered a few rather smelly manholes in the world of Mafi&Co, including cases of corruption involving judges in Lucania.
Among those supporting him on the talk show were hundreds of enraged students and citizens from a number of associations, PM Clementina Forleo, herself pilloried by politicians and the media for having dared to request Parliament for permission to use phone taps involving MPs in investigating serious financial scandals (the present law politicians completely protects MP’s “private” phonecalls even if they involve illicit or illegal activity). Francesco Cossiga, a monument to democracy, apparently tried to prevent her appearance on TV.
Murdered judge Paolo Borsellino’s brother was also present in the studio as well as the daughter of Antonino Scopelliti, a judge murdered by the Calabrian mafia, ‘Ndrangheta.
De Magistris himself was not present in the TV studio, as some newspaper articles today would seem to imply, but an interview with him this summer was broadcast, during which he correctly refused to speak about ongoing investigations. Nor would he go into any detail about inspections by Mastella’s ministerial bloodhounds. 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, whose stepson was involved in the criminal investigation.
Minister of “Grace” and so-called Justice C. Mastella now wants de Magistris moved somewhere where he can do less harm to the ruling caste. He has sent cartloads of inspectors down to Catanzaro, where de Magistris works; the forcible transfer depends on decision of the CSM on Monday 8th October. Mastella has denied that this has anything to do with an investigation entitled “Why not” in which Mastella’s own name allegedly appears (as does that of Prime Minister Romano Prodi).
Last night, the Annozero studio was full of young people who support de Magistris’ work against the ‘Ndrangheta.
Politician and former magistrate Antonio di Pietro’s website offers further support for de Magistris. ”To ask for him to be transferred” writes di Pietro, ”means not having understood anything about what is happening in the country. The general public feels that this request is an umpteenth act of abusing power by the political class” (…)
Only in a place like Italy (or Burma) can you demand that a programme like this not to be broadcast, concludes di Pietro. Referring to Prodi’s negative remarks on the programme, today he comments that ‘it is a serious mistake to try and prevent the airing of information just because you don’t like it (,,,) Berlsuconi has already tried to gag journalism. We shouldn’ follow his example.
Beppe Grillo’s blog also continues to support de Magistris, as does Marco Travaglio who, writing in the Unità (5 Sept), describes de Magistris as a “rare and dangerous exemplar of an investigator who investigates”.
Minsiter Rosy Bindi is reported to have said”I have never liked televised trials and I don’t like things to be dicussed in the wrong venues”
She has evidently mistaken a progam of investigative journalism (which reports facts and opinions from schoolchildren, murder victims’ relatives, politicians and judges, with “Judge Judy”. In which other country in Europe can a Minister claim that a program of political and legal information has no right to be reporting political and legal information!
The moral of the de Magistris story seems to be that anyone investigating the connections between Mafia and politics end will be forced to come to a dead end.