Hammer and Tongues

2007-10-27 13:38
Clementina Forleo has been awarded the ‘Premio Borsellino‘ (Prize in memory of the murdered judge Paolo Borsellino).
The prize is awarded for social and civic committment. Her tearful reaction, she explained, was due to the fact that she was ‘deeply perturbed” by the attempts to belittle her work which appeared the same day in a national newspaper, which compared her to a “swollen river”, a mad woman. She concluded that : ‘At the moment we really need to fight against these despicable attemps to denigrate judges’. 

See Beppe Grillo’s post on this nice witchhunt.

Controversial 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.