Dell'Utri: absolution "ad personam"? - Marco Travaglio
(51:17)

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Good Day to you all. This week will probably see the end of Marcello Dell’Utri’s appeal case in the Appeal Court of Palermo against his conviction for mafia association, a case that initially involved two accused, namely Marcello Dell’Utri and Gaetano Cinà. Both were found guilty back in December 2004 and Dell’Utri was sentenced to 9 years for external association with the Mafia while Cinà received a slightly lighter sentence after being found guilty of collusion in association with the Mafia.

Dell'Utri, a “political” sentence
Cinà is but one of many individuals that the Palermo judges believe to be a Mafia member. Cinà was a member of the Malaspina Family and was related, via his wife, to the old bosses who were subsequently deposed in the early eighties by the Corleone clan, specifically Stefano Bontate and Mimmo Teresi. But then Cinà died and so his name is no longer mentioned in the appeal process, which leaves only Dell’Utri, who stands accused of external association.
Not only did he lodge an appeal asking that his sentence be overturned, but the Palermo Public Prosecutor Nino Gatto also lodged his own appeal, asking that the sentence be increased from 9 to 11 years of imprisonment because he felt that the sentence handed down at the initial trial was too light.
Thursday’s hearing will probably be the last one in this appeal case, with Dell’Ultri’s making his closing statement, his defence its closing argument and the Public Prosecution’s rebuttal, after which the Appeal Court judges will retire to chambers to consider their verdict. This is obviously an important verdict, indeed a very important verdict not only from a legal perspective, but above all from a political perspective because, unlike Scajola and very few others, Dell’Utri was not hung out to dry by Berlusconi. On the contrary, he has consistently been defended, even publicly, by Berlusconi, by the centre-right newspapers and by the governing majority via certain decisions that we will look at just now and that will somehow affect these proceedings. Therefore, his political role is not merely archaeological in nature because we’re not only dealing here with a man who was the founding father of the Forza Italia Party, but we’re also dealing with a man who is one of the most important and influential individuals within that party. This party appears to have split down in Sicily and we can clearly see Dell’Ultri’s hand behind Miccichè’s manoeuvring with Governor Lombardo to create a different centre-right in Sicily, but there are even some who say that the Pdl in Palermo has become a totally different animal to the Pdl in Rome and that there is a fierce battle going on between the Pdl faction that recognises the stand taken by Renato Schifani and Justice Minister Alfano, and the other Pdl faction that instead supports the stand taken by Miccichè while, behind the scenes of Dell’Utri’s Miccichè, Alfano and Schifani are extremely hostile towards the Lombardo Junta. What has happened, instead, is that a strange alliance has been established that ranges from Dell'Utri and Micciché’s friends, the Fini supporters and all the way through to the Democratic Party, an alliance that is backing the Lombardo Junta and that is positioning itself as the standard-bearer of the party of the south, as opposed to the party of the north that is the power block that controls the central government, spearheaded by the Berlusconi – Bossi duo.
Given the fact that Dell'Utri is still around and hasn’t been ditched, the potential consequences associated with either his final conviction or his absolution will also be political in nature, especially considering the political role that Dell'Utri continues to play. We’re not going to once again reiterate the course of the proceedings and the charges because we have covered those topics on numerous other occasions, but suffice it to say that the charges do not simply hang on the testimony of turncoats. The Dell'Utri trial is a rare example of a trial revolving around external association with the Mafia that would have taken place anyway, even if there were no turncoats, because there is documented proof of his dealings with members of the mafia going back at least 30 years. Proof of this is contained in statements made by Dell'Utri himself, in which he has admitted that he has maintained friendly relations, if not more so, with well-known mafia members such as Mangano, Cinà and numerous others. We recently looked into the Garraffa affair, in which it even appears that Virga, the Trapani Boss, went along and demanded money from this businessman, namely Garraffa, because Dell'Utri was demanding money from him, entirely under the counter. Using a Mafia Boss to recover outstanding debts is obviously not a normal business practice, yet in this case it is a documented fact, as revealed by Dell’Utri’s diaries, which provide proof of the fact that he was still frequenting Mangano back in November 1993, while the Forza Italia Party was in the process of being established and on the eve of the 1994 elections. There were even entries found in the master account books belonging to the San Lorenzo Mafia Family, headed up by Totò Riina’s driver and factotum, Salvatore Biondino. Entries in those account books showed the San Lorenzo Family’s income, which included money obtained from extortion activities and the protection money paid to the clan by local traders, and on the other side the Clan’s expenses, including “gifts”. In reality, there was only one so-called “gift”, reflected in that column as “Can 5 1990”, followed by a figure that was quite obviously paid over to meet the needs of the Fininvest Group. Then there are the wiretapped telephone conversations that document how the mafia members, namely Provenzano’s friends, were actively working to ensure Dell’Utri’s election during the 1999 European elections, this just after the Chamber had rejected the application for an arrest warrant against Dell’Utri, submitted by the Public Prosecutors of Palermo and relating precisely to the Garraffa affair. Then there are the wiretapped telephone conversations between Mafia Boss Guttadauro and Mafia member Aragona, in which they are heard talking at Guttadauro house about how Dell'Utri garnered the Mafia’s votes after having come to an agreement with Mafia Boss Gioacchino Capizzi in 1999, after which nothing more had been heard from him and that, therefore, there was a need to speak with him again. During the course of the wiretapped conversation, Aragona, who was the Mafia doctor that provided a false alibi for which he was convicted on charges of mafia collusion, even claimed that Dell’Utri had invited him to visit his bookshop in Via Senato in Milan to attend the presentation ceremony for Contrada’s book.
But there are also other objective bits of information in this regard, plus the words of Ciancimino, which, as we will see shortly, were never admitted into evidence in the Dell’Utri trial thanks to a highly questionable ruling by the Appeal Court. This is a virtually airtight case, as can be seen from the sentence handed down at the original trial, yeti t is a case that is quite obviously subject to review and perhaps even susceptible to being entirely overturned on appeal, so much so that Dell’Utri’s Attorneys are openly admitting that they are entirely confident that the Palermo Appeal Court will absolve their Client. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens and, naturally, we are not going to make any predictions, although I must say that the signs emanating from the court proceedings would appear to indicate that the ruling may be in Dell’Utri’s favour, also because the Court has made no secret of the fact that the judges are becoming somewhat impatient with the prosecution’s arguments, thereby increasing the speculation that they may be more inclined to rule in favour of Dell’Utri and against the Public Prosecution.

Who are the judges that are hearing the Dell’Utri case
This ruling is due at a time when the atmosphere has become completely overheated due to attempts that have been made to influence the said ruling, the same kind of attempts to influence that always occur on the eve of such an important ruling as this. It is enough to remember that, back in December 2004, when the Court Judges had just retired to their chambers in Palermo, Pierferdinando Casini, then Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, felt honour bound to telephone Dell’Utri to assure him of his friendship and support and then to announce to all and sundry, in writing and on a Chamber letterhead, that the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, the third highest government post in this Country, confirmed his friendship and total support for a man who was shortly thereafter found guilty of associating with the Mafia and who was then sentenced to 9 years of imprisonment for his criminal collusion.
This was an extremely serious act of interference on the eve of the judges’ ruling and when the judges emerged from Chambers with their ruling in hand, they were well aware that they were not only convicting a friend of Berlusconi, but also convicting Casini’s friend Dell’Utri, which made no difference whatsoever because they convicted him anyway, but there was pressure on the judges then, as there is once again now.
Amongst those that are accused of having exerted pressure on the judges are the people here at “Il Fatto Quotidiano”, and me personally because of the article I wrote for “L’Espresso”, but what did I actually write? I wrote about something that seems perfectly obvious to me, namely that it would be somewhat difficult for the Court to justify any decision to absolve Dell’Utri, especially since the Court of Cassation recently overturned the Milan Appeal Court ruling of two years ago, in which Dell’Utri was found not guilty of attempted extortion and making serious threats in the Garraffa affair, when he despatched Mafia Boss Virga to go and collect a debt owed to Dell’Utri, under the counter, and thereby also absolving him of a lesser crime that was already statute barred. The Court of Cassation ruling essentially states that the matter cannot simply be classified as a case of serious threats because either there were no threats made, but if any serious threats were indeed made, as was proven during the trial, then they were aimed at extorting money, in other words at obtaining undue benefits by means of intimidation, which is classified as “attempted extortion” and is only “attempted” because Garraffa never did pay the money over. Therefore, the Appeal Court was ordered to re-open the appeal case, taking into account the fact that either there were no threats made or there were indeed serious threats made, then those threats are sufficient to constitute a charge of attempted extortion, regarding which there should have been a conviction rather than the charges being statute barred. As I was saying, it would be very difficult to justify a ruling absolving Dell’Utri seeing that the Court of Cassation, which is a higher Court than the Appeal Court, has already established that Dell'Utri did indeed commit the crime of criminal extortion using the services of Mafia Boss Virga back in 1990/1991, in other words less than 20 years ago and, therefore, if it has indeed already been established that he was still exchanging favours with the Mafia as late as 1990/91 then, not only could the crime of association with the Mafia not be statute barred, but there can also be no absolution. So I was simply saying that this speculation of possible absolution by the Appeal Court could well be thrown up into the air by this latest development involving the Court of Cassation, but could this ever amount to putting pressure on the judges? I don’t believe so because it is simply a case of a journalist doing his job, which is essentially to review the facts and consider the evidence.
On the issue of undue pressure, just think that Belpietro has even accused us of adopting Mafia tactics to threaten the Appeal Court judges with headlines like: “The Fatto Quotidiano’s extortion attempts against the judges in Dell’Utri’s appeal case. Having got wind of a possible absolution for Dell’Utri, Travaglio & Co. cast doubts on the integrity of the judges”. The tone is decidedly mafia-like, saying nothing but implying plenty and misrepresenting people’s actions. But in reality, what else could they be referring to, other my article in “L’Espresso”? Belpietro is referring to an article written by two extremely good, indeed two of the best informed journalists that we have here in Palermo, both of whom luckily work for “Il Fatto Quotidiano”, namely Peppino Lo Bianco and Sandra Rizza, whom many of you know as the authors of the book entitled “L’agenda Rossa di Borsellino” and more recently another excellent book entitled “L’Agenda nera della Seconda Repubblica”, which I strongly recommend that you read and that you already know about because it has already been discussed on Beppe Grillo’s blog. In this book, Sandra and Peppino talk about the behind the scenes events that led up to the massacres, the negotiations and then about the cover ups by the State, which are only now finally being revealed tank to the revelations made by Massimo Ciancimino and Gaspare Spatuzza.
But what did Lo Bianco and Sandra Rizza write about in “Il Fatto Quotidiano” just the other day? Something that is being rumoured in Palermo and that no one else has had the courage to write about, with the exception of Lirio Abbate of “L’Espresso”. You know who Lirio Abbate is don’t you? He is a courageous journalist who is living under permanent armed guard after he and Peter Gomez co-wrote a book entitled “I Complici” (The Accomplices), in which they talk about politics-mafia dealings. So what is the word around Palermo these days you ask? There are certain rumours doing the rounds regarding all 3 of the Palermo Appeal Court judges. We didn’t spread these rumours, nor did we resort to spreading any malicious gossip, as Belpietro claims, by saying nothing but implying plenty. No, we did not mention the rumours but merely stated the facts, leaving everyone to come to their own conclusions regarding the rumours. The facts regarding the 3 Palermo Appeal Court judges are that, in terms of the latest wiretapping reforms, they want to prevent the journalists from publishing the names and photographs of these judges and the public prosecutors, but why? Well, because not all judges and public prosecutors are the same and, indeed, it is true that there are some good ones, some bad ones and some that are merely so-so. In turn, the newspapers have a duty to scrutinise the poker that be, including the magistrates and so, if something needs to be said, then they say it, but why? Well, because the justice system is accountable to the public and, therefore, the public is entitled to know who is running the justice system. Obviously, the things that are being said about these 3 judges are not particularly serious in nature, but I will nevertheless tell you what they are in just a moment because they could yet turn out to be rather important.
The story goes that one of the members of the 3-man Panel of Judges, specifically Sergio La Commare, was censured by the Upper Council of the Magistrature because, some fifteen years ago, he was caught passing a note to a Public Prosecutor that was prosecuting in a case presided over by the judge in question, in which note said judge, faced with having to plough through a veritable mountain of documentation and spend hours in Chambers, asked the prosecutor to provide him with a summary of the evidence because he didn’t particularly want to drown in the paperwork. This act was deemed to compromise his duty of impartiality and of showing undue regard for the Public Prosecutor’s Office. Therefore, this judge, an honest judge who may well have been guilty of treating his duties too lightly perhaps, but nevertheless an honest and capable judge, was censured by the Upper Council because it was felt that by passing that note he had failed in his duty to remain unbiased and was therefore transferred from Palermo to Trapani.
Another of the judges presiding over this case, a man named Salvatore Barresi, was a member of the judges panel that presided over the initial Andreotti trial and now that he is an Appeal Court judge, there are those who say that he played a major role in the decision to absolve Andreotti of all charges due to lack of sufficient evidence, a ruling that was later torn to shreds by the Palermo Appeal Court, which overturned the original ruling and ruling instead that the crime was indeed committed, but prior to 1980, and was therefore statute barred, a ruling that was later confirmed by the Court of Cassation.
But why did we even mention this Barresi? Well certainly not because he absolved Andreotti, because he was fully within his rights to do so if he believed that it was the right and proper thing to do. Although it transpired later in the legal battle that the decision to absolve Andreotti was wrong, however, many bad legal decisions have been made in the past and even though the absolution of a guilty offender is indeed a legal error, as is the conviction of an innocent person, experience has taught us that the absolution of guilty offenders is a far more frequent phenomenon, but as long as he made his decision in good faith he made the right choice on that occasion, even thug it was later overturned.
We’re talking about Barresi now because amongst the numerous things that Ciancimino’s had to say about his father, he also said that, as a young man and prior to becoming a magistrate, this same Barresi used to play poker at the Ciancimino home because he was a school friend of one of Vito Ciancimino’s children, the other one, namely the one that I believe is now an attorney and is named Giovanni. Is there really anything wrong with Barresi going to the home of a school friend, even if it was the home of the Ciancimino family? It may well be true that everyone knew what Ciancimino was, but obviously the young Barresi could not even vaguely imagine that he would one day become a magistrate and that his visits to the Ciancimino home would come back to haunt him even though he had not committed any crime, participated in any illegal activity or, for that matter, done anything that could compromise his integrity and his public image, etc.
In a moment I’ll tell you why it is so interesting to write about this matter, however, in the meantime I’ll tell you what has been said and written in recent days regarding Judge President of the Appeal Court that is currently judging Dell’Utri, namely Claudio Dall’Acqua, who is not only a senior judge, but also a man that is absolutely beyond reproach. He has two children, but fortunately the sins of the father cannot be held against his children, or vice versa. One of his children worked for a company called Abitalia, which was linked to Edilia Venusta, a company that was expelled from Confindustria because of its links with the Mafia, in that the company’s owner, a certain Mr. Rizzacasa, was arrested just a few days ago on suspicion of being involved in money laundering, at which point the judge’s son immediately resigned from that Company.

Strange happenings in Palermo
Some time ago, when the judge was already on the bench, his other son, Fabrizio, became Secretary General of the Palermo Municipality, so I’m sure that now there are people who will claim that this was an automatic career move? Not at all! He was appointed as Secretary General of the Municipality of the Sicilian Capital in good faith by Mayor Cammarata. Cammarata is a trusted associate of Micciché and is, therefore, obviously a strong supporter of the Dell’Utri faction of the Pdl, yet he appointed the son of the judge who is presiding over Dell’Utri’s appeal to act as Secretary General in his Municipality. We mention this because it is a particularly interesting situation, in that the judge’s son was appointed ahead of various other pretenders to that post, notwithstanding the fact that they were deemed to have greater seniority and experience, so the appointment has raised many eyebrows. Now we don’t know why he was appointed directly by the Mayor and perhaps the judge’s son is the greatest Municipal General Secretary in the world, however, this appointment is not the greatest thing ever, also because it comes in the wake of yet another decision by the centre-right governing majority that involves the judge himself rather than his son and that was made while he was already presiding over another of Dell’Utri’s appeal cases. Last year, the then Judge President of the Palermo Appeal Court was obliged to recuse himself from an appeal case involving charges of aggravated criminal defamation. Dell'Utri was accused of having orchestrated a plot whereby a number of fake turncoats that he even met with personally were attempting to discredit the real turncoats that were implicating not only him, but also the entire top structure of the Cosa Nostra in numerous other trials. He was facing criminal charges of aggravated defamation but he was judged to be innocent of these charges at the initial trial. This was not the greatest ruling ever and, as a matter of fact, the Prosecution decided to appeal the decision and, on appeal, he suddenly found himself appearing before a Judge President that was renowned for being extremely strict, so much so, in fact, that he had even handed down a harsher sentence in the Andreotti trial and had also convicted Contrada on his second appeal, so he was considered to be a really harsh judge.
Yet they managed to rid themselves of this judge, but how? They got rid of him by appointing him as consultant to the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Committee. Indeed, just before the end of this appeal case, the judge in question abandoned the trial and the appeal case had to recommence from scratch, which proves that this interference with judges or members of their families during Dell’Utri appeal cases are not merely isolated cases, so it is not entirely surprising that some people have pulled up their noses at the promotion of Judge Dell’Acqua’s son while the father is still in the process of judging Dell'Utri, which obviously doesn’t necessarily imply that Judge Dall’Acqua is not unbiased, anything but, and indeed we are certain that he, like the other two judges serving on the panel, will remain unbiased. However, it shows the importance of knowing the judges and their background, particularly in the case where there are political interests involved.
So why is it so important to specifically mention this ancient and youthful friendship that Ciancimino’s son talks about? We haven’t heard Barresi’s version of this story, which could be important because of the Palermo Appeal Court’s decision not to hear any testimony from Ciancimino’s son during the Dell’Utri appeal, so inevitably certain people will begin to wonder whether this was because one of the judges was a regular visitor to the Ciancimino home and then, all of a sudden, Ciancimino’s son becomes a potential witness in the Dell’Utri trial and the 3 judges unanimously decide that no, he won’t be allowed to give testimony in that trial.
The other day, indignant about the accusations that raised certain questions regarding their propriety, the 3 appeal court judges emerged from Chambers with an announcement in hand, something that has never before happened in any trial proceedings but, I also note, also failed to raise even the slightest objection, which was even more unusual. I don’t know if this sort of thing is even permissibile, however, it was done and I certainly cannot remember any previous precedents in this regard. Anyway, the judges emerged from Chambers and proceeded to re-open the proceedings by reading this statement, which went as follows: “We remain indifferent in the face of the current media pressure and we remain accountable only to this Country’s laws and to our own consciences”. Obviously I believe that the public has the right to expert some answers and I therefore believe that if anyone should feel obliged to provide certain answers they should do so immediately. Naturally the 3 judges presiding over the Dell’Ultri trial were immediately defended by a lay member of the Upper Council of the Magistrature, an individual that is a strict Berlusconian at heart, namely Gianfranco Anedda, an individual who consistently refuses to vote in favour of any document designed to protect magistrates against insults from Berlusconi or other members of the Cult, yet this time he offered to draft a procedure to protect the judges of the Appeal Court, claiming that there were certain insinuations being circulated that were aimed at discrediting the presiding judges. Now, all of a sudden, just because these insinuations were made by the newspapers and were against certain judges that Dell’Utri presumably thinks are on his side, finally Cult-member Anedda is ready to step up to the plate and vote in favour of a statement supporting the 3 judges. All we can say is thank heavens that out of some 9-thousand judges in Italy, he has finally managed to find 3 that he actually likes. The problem is that this time they haven’t had to endure any political attacks and insults and they haven’t been followed by anyone attempting to find out what colour socks they happen to be wearing. We simply told 3 true stories, no insinuations or suchlike, facts that the 3 judges in question didn’t even bother to deny in the statement they read out in court, limiting themselves only to stating that they are totally unbiased and that they will not be swayed by anyone, which we are very pleased to hear because we expect nothing less of them!
I don’t think that they should necessarily be so proud about their impartiality in that impartiality is an absolute prerequisite for any judge. The real pressure and the real intimidation against the judges presiding over the Dell’Utri case is coming from elsewhere, from political quarters, specifically from Dell’Utri’s political quarters, from his newspapers and from the Ministers and his parliamentary colleagues. The greatest intimidation that has occurred to date was the one that affected and indeed massacred Massimo Ciancimino for having dared to talk. Within the next few days, a DVD entitled “Sotto Scacco” (facing check-mate), produced by journalists Marco Lillo and Udo Gumpel will be appearing together with “Il Fatto Quotidiano” on the news stand. I saw it yesterday and I strongly recommend that you get it. The DVD deals with the issues we are talking about now, namely the massacres, the negotiations, Ciancimino and Spatuzza. It contains a lot of new and interesting facts and attempts to shed some more light on the situation. A more or less 2-hour summary of the events that we are discussing now, naturally including some previously unseen interviews and documents. It is truly important and in some ways even frightening. This DVD also includes a long interview with Massimo Ciancimino, who talks about all his father’s meetings with Provenzano, with General Mori, etc, and shows the house and the various places and, at one point, he says: this is a very strange because I keep on being asked why I decided to talk. Yet before I decided to come forward, in other words until two years ago, no one had ever asked me why I wasn’t talking.
A strange country indeed where someone is asked why he chooses to do his duty as a citizen and agrees to testify. Why he answers the questions put to him by a magistrate and why he hands over certain documents. Here in Italy a man that doesn’t subscribe to the principle of “omertà” is considered to be strange, so obviously the Mafia has already won the battle when “omertà” is deemed to be the norm and when individuals like Mangano are even considered to be heroes for not talking while others like Ciancimino, who is not actually a turncoat, decides to talk anyway and is an eyewitness is constantly asked why he has decided to talk. Ciancimino talks and talks and because of this decision he has been massacred by the press and the politicians, while the judges, instead, not only don’t massacre him but even consider him to be a reliable witness, so much so, in fact, that just a few months ago, on 27 January, the Second Section of the Criminal Court of Palermo, the Court itself, not the Public Prosecutor’s Office or the prosecution for that matter, but the presiding judges handed down a 10 year and 8 month prison sentence for mafia-related crimes to one of the many Forza Italia regional councillors, namely Mr. Mercadante, and amongst the prosecution’s witnesses was none other than Ciancimino’s son. The sentence handed down by the Court that judged Ciancimino’s words during the initial trial, states that: “The Court believes the testimony provided by Massimo Ciancimino to be extremely reliable because of his logical and coherent account, without any contradictions whatsoever, and also because every occurrence he mentioned was subsequently confirmed. One thing that is absolutely certain and that undoubtedly emerged during the course of this trial is that he (Ciancimino’s son) was indeed physically present at the meetings between his father and Mr. Provenzano, where they discussed business matters, tender contracts, mafia affairs and politics. Massimo Ciancimino’s closeness to his father resulted in him being an excellent witness, if not an indirect participant in meetings and events that are now of interest in terms of current investigations in that they may be useful in terms of reconstructing the perverse series of encounters, alliances and political and institutional agreements that turned the Corleone Clan into a power hub rather than merely a group of unscrupulous murderers with the ability to influence the socio-political and economic history of Sicily and other parts of the Italian Republic from the 1970’s through to the late 1990’s”.

Witnesses that are not permitted to testify
The Public Prosecution of Palermo requested that Ciancimino be called to testify during the Dell’Utri trial. The 3 judges, namely Dall’Acqua, La Commare and Barresi denied the prosecution’s request, but why? It is perfectly legal and it is up to the judges to decide whose testimony to allow and whose testimony not to allow during the trial. The parties request and the judge decides, however, we have to wait and see what he decides and why, although we may obviously speculate and comment if we at least know what the decision is. In this 9-page tome of a ruling, the judges presiding over the Dell'Utri trial state that Ciancimino’s testimony cannot be heard due to the principle of progression, unresolved conflict and the general nature of his statements, but how do these appeal court judges know what Ciancimino’s statements contain unless they have listened to said statements in the courtroom? Is their judgement based on what they have read in the newspapers? Or on what they have seen on television? On what they’ve heard from others? How can anyone deem a witness to be reliable or unreliable or too general unless they have heard what he/she has to say? Who told you that the witness’ testimony is too general? Are you basing your judgement on the written statements gathered by the Public Prosecutors and attached to the prosecution’s application for this witness to be allowed to testify? Statements made to a Public Prosecutor have no legal value since the introduction of the new clause 111 of the Constitution. Since 1999/2000, anything said outside the courtroom is of no legal value, so Ciancimino’s statements are only worth something once they are made on the witness stand during the course of the Dell’Ultri trial and only the judges can decide whether the witness is reliable, unreliable, too general or superfluous, contradictory or coherent, progressive or immediate, so it is up to them to ask the right questions, listen to the answers and then to judge. How can they judge beforehand? Before having heard what he has to say? How can they judge a witness that they’ve never met face to face except while playing a game of cards with him?
This is the first question that immediately comes to mind, so the decision to exclude a witness that has previously been deemed to be credible by the Court during the course of a different trial but also dealing with the relationship that his father had with the Corleone clan is not only questionable, but also somewhat disconcerting. This is the basic reason why it is useful to go and see who these appeal court judges are, and not to overlook any details whatsoever in order to understand why they made such a disconcerting decision. We have to look into who they are in order to understand what they’re saying. This has nothing to do with any insinuations or blackmail or messages or attempts to influence the proceedings. It’s called the right to report or indeed the duty to report and if they had listened to Ciancimino and then classified him as unreliable in the sentence, then we would have taken note of the fact that the Court had instead deemed him to be reliable, however, if they don’t even hear what he has to say, then how can they simply say that he is an unreliable witness? That is why certain people have got the impression that perhaps this Court is leaning towards absolution rather than conviction, which may be totally the wrong impression, by all means. We will only know how the trial will end once the final ruling has been issued, however, such an over the top and strange statement certainly warrants attentions. The newspapers are also here to criticise the Magistrature when they make decisions or put forward peculiar theories like the one we have just read about.
The other example of conditioning, over and above the as yet unfounded accusations against Ciancimino junior, is the decision taken by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and, more specifically, the Committee that deals with the protection of mafia turncoats and state witnesses, not to provide witness protection for Gaspare Spatuzza is one that was made a full year after the application by the Florence Public Prosecutors Office and a few months after similar requests were submitted by the Public Prosecutors Office of Caltanissetta and the National Anti-mafia Prosecutor.
All of them believe that Spatuzza is a genuine turncoat who has never yet been proven wrong. Indeed, every time proof has been found, that proof has confirmed rather than negated Spatuzza’s claims. Then there have also been certain declarations that perhaps couldn’t be either confirmed or negated, for example, when someone talks about what someone else told him, then either that someone else must confirm what he said or it becomes a case of Spatuzza not really wanting to say what actually happened, which doesn’t mean that it is not true simply because it hasn’t been confirmed, but simply that the information cannot be used at trial. We don’t know whether it’s true that Graviano Giuseppe told him that Dell'Utri and Berlusconi were handing the Country over to the Mafia because unfortunately Graviano is not talking. Graviano’s brother claims that he never heard any such thing. Giuseppe is taking his time. He says: we’ll see, perhaps I will talk, but I cannot talk now. Exempt me from the threat of provision 41 bis. So who says that Spatuzza’s claim is not true? At worst it won’t be admissible in court unless it is confirmed, but in order to state that it is not true, proof has to be found to the contrary.
So why is Spatuzza being denied witness protection? According to the undersecretary in charge of this case, namely Alfredo Mantovano, Spatuzza’s statements regarding Dell'Utri, Berlusconi, the mafia and the killings were made too late, in other words after the 6-month deadline for telling all, as prescribed by the law of 2001. This law was introduced by the centre-left. Napolitano himself masterminded the law when he was Minister of Internal Affairs in the First Prodi government back in 1996/97. He said that there were too many Mafia turncoats, imagine that! In a Country where there are 30-thousand mafia members, he stated that one thousand mafia turncoats were too many. Not that there were too many mafia members, all of whom were getting up to no good and shutting people up, but too many turncoats that were prepared to spill the beans, so they began to work on that law. It took some time and the law was eventually drafted by Minister Fassino back in 2001 and was passed by an ample centre-right and centre-left majority. It is an horrendous law that effectively discouraged hundreds of potential mafia turncoats from coming forward, so much so, in fact, that virtually no more turncoats came forward after the law was introduced, except for Spatuzza, who is not a turncoat for convenience because now it is no longer a bargain to come forward since that law eliminated all of the benefits and, in addition, set this 6 month deadline, not one minute more, to tell of perhaps 40/50/60 years of mafia activities. How can anyone be expected to remember everything that he has done during 60 years of life, in merely 6 months?
Spatuzza is certainly not a turncoat for convenience. He is a turncoat who has had a spiritual revelation following a long religious encounter with Bishop de L’Aquila, etc., which makes him very different from all the other turncoats. They left him out in the cold because they claim that he only talked about Berlusconi and Dell'Utri after the expiry of that 6-month deadline, however, the 3 Public Prosecutors Offices plus the National Anti-mafia Prosecutor all know the law and they are also well aware of the fact that Spatuzza only mentioned certain events more than 6 months later, so why did nonetheless request witness protection for him? Perhaps because they felt that it was totally impossible for him to tell them everything he knew within just 6 months. There is a even Court of Cassation ruling that is part of that law, namely that, within 6 months, the mafia member must reveal everything that he has done and everything that he personally knows about. Initially he must provide a declaration of intent, listing the topics and points that he will be talking about, after which he must start talking about the things he did and those that he personally knows about. As regards anything that he heard from others, he can continue to talk about them later, the important thing is that they must appear in the initial declaration of intent that he drafted right at the beginning of the collaboration.
But what did Spatuzza do? According to the Florence Public Prosecutors Office, Spatuzza duly outlined the scenario right from the word go, namely during his initial interview, and he has never revoked his decision to talk. The subsequent circumstantial evidence that he provided, in which the names of Berlusconi and Dell'Utri emerged, was supplementary information on a topic that had already been clearly stipulated, so much so that, although Spatuzza began collaborating in early 2009, on 16 June, in other words around the expiry of the 6-month deadline, he said: I will reveal the names of certain politicians and other important individuals, however, I didn’t want to make my statements more interesting before I had time to assess how they would be received, so I didn’t want to immediately mention Dell'Utri… because otherwise they will say that I only dangled these names in front of the magistrates to ensure that I would receive protection, so I first spoke about what I did, like the Via D’Amelio murder, unlike Scarantino who incriminated himself, after which proof to the contrary was uncovered and now the case is to be re-opened even though a final verdict has already been handed down. So we have people in jail who had nothing to do with the events, but why? Well, because they were convicted of a crime that Spatuzza in fact committed and so, on 28 April 2009, the Florence judges asked the government, and more specifically the witness protection Committee, to provide protection for Spatuzza. Spatuzza was waiting for them to give the OK before mentioning the names of those politicians, so that no one could accuse him of using that information as a bargaining chip in Exchange for protection. If he had mentioned the names any earlier, they would have said: you see, they have rewarded him for having named Dell'Utri and Berlusconi. Instead, he wanted them to first assess whether or not his collaboration regarding the things that he had done was indeed genuine, in other words the Via D’Amelio murder as well as a number of other unresolved crimes that he helped to solve by saying: I did it!
Thus, his actions delayed the revelation of those names and, notwithstanding the fact that he had previously revealed his intention to name names shows his absolute good faith and his lack of any malicious intent and his desire to allay any suspicion of exploitation, this landed up costing him this rejection, because they are now saying: you didn’t mention this immediately, although, if he had mentioned the names immediately, they would obviously have said that he did so to ensure his own protection while, actually, that protection had already been requested prior to him naming those names and before the magistrates even knew whose names he would mention. Therefore, denying protection because he named names too late is totally absurd, both logically and juridically, because protection was requested before he named those names. In any event, as Attorney, Italia dei Valori Parliamentarian and the most famous turncoat Attorney Li Gotti explains, this decision is neither here nor there. Where have you ever seen a Government that usurps the authority of the Magistrature by deciding which turncoats are reliable and which ones aren’t and, above all, which turncoats should be granted protection and which ones shouldn’t? That’s all we need! Worse still, in this case we’re talking about a government headed up by one of the very people whose names Spatuzza revealed in connection with events that occurred during the season of the massacres.
Therefore, a conflict of interests is a very real possibility. Once upon a time, the turncoat would talk, the judges investigated his claims, the government protected him and the mafia threatened him, but now the chain has become somewhat shorter in that the Mafia doesn’t even need to threaten Spatuzza since he is already under threat from a government headed up by the very person that Spatuzza is bringing to task. I don’t know if I’m making myself very clear. This constitutes extreme intimidation of a key witness in mafia-related trials and an important witness in the Dell’Utri trial, although his testimony is not decisive in that Spatuzza is in many cases merely confirming what has already been said by 30 other turncoats and has already been confirmed by various objective sources. In any event, just imagine the predicament of the judge, sitting in Chambers, who knows full well that, should he deem Spatuzza to be a reliable witness, he will not only incur the anger of Dell'Utri, but also that of an entire government that has gone so far as to attempt such a risky move, namely to deny protection to a turncoat that has even raised certain questions regarding cases that are already closed, such as the Via D’Amelio killing and the 1993 murders. Fortunately, the Ministry’s decision can still be taken on appeal to the Regional Administrative Court and I think that this is precisely what Gaspare Spatuzza’s defence attorneys are going to do next.
So we will have to wait and see what happens. By next week we can probably meet again and, unless the discussions in Chambers turn out to be extremely protracted, we will be able to comment on the appeal ruling, confirming yet again that, until proven otherwise, the judges impartiality is absolute and that the things that we have written about cast no shadow of doubt on their good faith and impartiality. If anything, it is that decision not to admit the testimony of a witness like Ciancimino that raises doubts regarding the judge’s independence, far more so than their personal affair that have no bearing whatsoever on the case but may well be of interest for their curiosity and news value.

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