Today I’m coming out. I’m obliged to do so by events. I know that a photo of me is circulating and it has been offered to newspapers of the calibre of Il Corriere della Sera, Il Giornale, Libero and Il Corrierino dei Piccoli. It’s a photo that’s been going around for years. It goes back to 1989. It could destroy my career. I know that you will be wondering about it. Why have I never talked about the meeting that happened in the barracks of the Carabinieri? Why has this snap been kept secret for years? Why did I not warn my manager? Why, after the dinner, did Iva Zanicchi continue to present "Okay il prezzo è giusto" instead of me? And even think, why did I accuse Craxi of being a thief on TV that then followed with my exile from TV? Who made me do it? To this question I can respond: I was ordered to do so by the CIA and by Antonio Di Pietro, who already at that time was operating in the shadows. “A plot organised on paper to destroy the First Republic, with its connected five-sided-party, to go along with interests that were even international, that even the United States was not excluded from.” I have to confess, I didn’t by then know about Berlusconi and the bibliophile Dell'Utri, I did not know that they frequented the multiple-murderer Mangano. I was not aware of the relations between the mafia and the politicians.
How was I to know that the number 1816 of the P2 was in reality Berlusconi? I had not by then got to know Marco Travaglio and his ten tons of books. I believed that the Presidents of the Council grew under cabbages. I was young and inexperienced. I was trusting. And I ate; I can remember it exactly as though it were today: “bomba di maccheroni, montone con le olive, nasello alla palermitana, babbalucci a picchipacchi, fichi d'india ai lamponi, una cassata e cannoli alla siciliana”. I paid the bill using a “pizzino” to a courteous and taciturn gentleman who they told me later was Provenzano nicknamed "U tratturi". A character who negotiated with the top institutions of the time (and perhaps of today as well) and who went around with bodyguards. There were 6 of us at dinner. You can just see the shoulder of one of the people, but that blue jacket on the right speaks for itself: it was Vittorio Feltri. But he has nothing to do with it. I invited him, and in fact I am thanking him for having kept quiet all these years. The lady near to Berlusconi ‘s fly, has an impressive likeness to D'Addario, but I can’t say who it was, I’m a gentleman. I know that Berlusconi was happy to have her under the table. Once the dinner was finished, of which the conversation is not for public knowledge, but I can reveal that I accepted all the proposals and I gave Berlusconi details of the Swiss account in the name of my brother, Provenzano made an offer that could not be refused and in fact I believe that we all accepted the offer with enthusiasm. When we left we greeted Berlusconi’s driver, one called Renato Schifani, who stayed out on the pavement in the cold to wait. There, I too have said everything. I too have a family to look after.