(Marco Travaglio www.beppegrillo.it)
Good day to you all.. Salvatore Cuffaro, former Governor of Sicily, republican parliamentarian elected on the UDC ticket and who then switched to Berlusconi’s side on one of the supported nomination lists in recent months has been in jail since last Saturday to begin serving a final 7-year sentence for aggravated aiding and abetting the Cosa Nostra. He was found guilty of having tipped-off a known and previously convicted mafioso like come Giuseppe Guttadauro, the Boss of Brancaccio, as well as a businessman with suspected mafia links and convicted together with him, namely Aiello, about the fact that they were under investigation and under surveillance. In other words, for having aided and abetted their attempt to escape the ongoing investigation against them by the Palermo Prosecutors.
Cuffaro in prison
Certainly an extremely serious crime, this. A Governor, the Head of the Sicilian Regional Administration who helps an already convicted mafia boss and another who was later convicted to evade or at least try to evade an official investigation and warns them about the fact that they are under investigation and under surveillance, what next? … We never found out who told Cuffaro in the first place but the fact remains that since the other day it has been officially confirmed that he took that news and passed it straight on to the two mafiosi.
One previously convicted and the other soon to be convicted, those are the facts. It raised many eyebrows and created quite a stir to see a serving parliamentarian going into Rebibbia Prison because, as far as anyone can remember, in recent times and indeed in recent decades, the last time anything like this was seen was when Previti was taken into Rebibbia Prison to serve out a 7 and a half year sentence following his twin convictions for having bribed judges, namely in the Mondadori case and then the Mills case. However, thanks to a partial official pardon, and to a letter that she had got from Berlusconi, the former Ms. Cirielli landed up serving only 3 years of the 7 and a half year sentence in jail, with the rest being served under house arrest and even in the care of social services, in other words, in total freedom.
Compared to Previti, Cuffaro instead has a major problem because, although their sentences are much of a muchness, Previti 7,5 years and Cuffaro 7-years, tank to article 7 concerning aggravating circumstances, Cuffaro’s crime is not subject to the partial pardon, so he won’t get that 3-year discount. Therefore, Cuffaro has no hope of serving only four years of that sentence, which, with additional benefits, etc, would drop quickly to 3 years, the threshold under which the sentence can be served under the auspices of social services. As a result, unless they change the law, he will have to serve at least the first 4 years of his 7-year sentence actually in jail. Obviously his career is over, but it doesn’t end there. Within the next few days the Preliminary Hearing Judge of the Palermo Court should be handing down his ruling in the other case in which the Prosecution brought charges of associating with the mafia, meaning that his aiding and abetting was not in fact a sporadic occurrence, but that this man was a politician permanently at the service of the Cosa Nostra.
And his old mentor, Mannino, did him absolutely no favours yesterday when, in an interview with a daily newspaper, he remembered how pissed off he had been when he found out that Cuffaro had approached Angelo Siino, a mafia representative on the tender allocation committee and who thus controlled a large block of votes, to ask for his votes for Mannino.
Obviously it is never a nice thing to see someone land up in jail, it’s not good news that amongst the current 70-thousand odd prison inmates, yes it’s already up there at 70-thousand, there is even one of our politicians, politicians who should be serving the interests of the people, but at least one crooked politician has landed up in the clink to serve out his sentence. It is also very sad to see how many people, many of them perhaps in good faith, have complimented Cuffaro on his restraint because he didn’t proceed to rant and rave against the magistrates and because he handed himself in for prosecution, especially since no such complements have been paid to the other 70-thousand inmates currently sitting in the Country’s prisons, many of whom have done much the same sort of thing and also did not rant and rave about any judicial plots, the politicisation of the judiciary and bullshit like that.
There is another interesting question, however, and one that we will leave to the people of the centre-left to ask, those that want to join up with Casini at all costs. What does UDC leader Casini have to say about this conviction? Some of you may well remember a certain video clip that is doing the rounds on YouTube, indeed you may want to trace that clip and link it to our Passaparola. Casini appeared on Anno Zero to create a scene, cap on his head and Michele Santoro asked him: are you prepared to swear to Cuffaro’s innocence? Casini said: Yes! He then went on to add that although he would not nominate for election anyone who was under investigation or under suspicion, except for Cuffaro, on whose innocence he was personally prepared to bet. He was prepared to personally stand by Cuffaro, an understandable position for a party leader rallying to the aid of a party member who was, after all, still deemed to be innocent at the time. However, when one backs an ally so forcefully and put’s one’s own reputation on the line, one can get badly burned, so the question now is whether or not Casini will ever be called to account for his poor judgement in backing a man who is now in jail for aiding and abetting the mafia?
What we really need is the kind of media that would be prepared to put these questions to Casini, but unfortunately that will never happen, so all we can hope is that he will once again appear on Anno Zero where Santoro, or someone else on his behalf, can call Casini to account by asking: do you remember standing up for Cuffaro? What now? Please explain! Instead, Casini can now even wipe his hands of the matter since Cuffaro was not even a member of the UDC when he went to jail, because although he was elected under the UDC banner he then chose to go with Berlusconi, who is a renowned collector of convicted criminals and gets jealous when he sees one in another party and wants him at all costs!
Another bit of good news is what happened just the other day at Lissone, near Monza. The Pdl-aligned Mayor, together with Stefania Craxi, inaugurated a town square, Piazza Bettino Craxi, on the 11th anniversary of the man’s death. Fortunately, in this day and age such things can no longer be done hush-hush because the Web is merciless and you can find out anything you want if you just go looking for it, so Piero Ricca, members of the general public and Italia dei Valori activists went along to that inauguration, where they began to shout out loud precisely what Craxi was, namely a thief, a criminal and an escapee, so much so that the ceremony that was due to be held in the town square itself had to be hurriedly moved to a theatre because Mrs. Craxi and her buddies had to make a run for it and go and hide. Meanwhile, back in the square, the name plate proclaiming “Piazza Craxi” was being replaced with a cardboard sign proclaiming “Piazza Sandro Pertini - President of all Italians”. He too was a socialist but, surprise surprise, no one remembers him because he was honest and therefore not deemed to be a good example, whereas the most remembered socialist ever also happens to be that man that single-handedly destroyed the socialist party, namely Craxi. Thank heavens for the Web, because it means that certain things can longer simply pass by unnoticed and there will always be someone to intervene, raise the alarm and draw the battle lines and as long as there is someone, even just one individual who says enough is enough, there is hope for everyone else.
Talking about Craxi, some of you - I hope very few because it takes real guts and courage – may have watched the horrendous funeral march broadcast last night on Tv7, which is the weekly version of the TG1 directed by Augusto “Minzolingua”. An horrendous seditious documentary presented by a former socialist director who has just been appointed as Director of the Mercadante Theatre in Naples by the new socialist and also berlusconian governor Caldoro. This director, I think his name is De Fusco, put together something that was so laudatory that I think even the Craxians were embarrassed, in which Craxi was compared with the likes of Jesus Christ, the stoned adulteress, Oedipus, Colonno, Antigone and Prometheus. It was something absolutely out of this world and there could have been no higher possible praise. In an hour, they managed to not even mention the word “bribery” even once. Naturally, there were also a number of previous offenders who collaborated in discussing the “greatness” of Craxi. I worked out that between them they have served about ten years of prison time, including Martelli, Carra, De Michelis, Di Donato, Pomicino, amounting to 10 years of prison time, plus another 10 years that Craxi had accumulated. Then there were also a number of unconvicted people, just for a change you understand, who added their bit, two from the Communist Party who should be proud of the difference between the Berlinguer-ites and the Caxians, but who were instead extremely apologetic for the fact that their party had opposed Craxi. One of these was Ranieri, who is trying to sidle up to Napolitano and is attempting to become Mayor of Naples, while the other was Petruccioli, former President of the dormant RAI. This just goes to show the disparity that there is between the reality in this Country, which is fortunately represented by the demonstrators in Piazza Craxi in Lissone, and the Country of the politicians, or “the bunker” as we at Il Fatto Quotidiano have called it, which is increasingly drawing in upon itself as their world crumbles around them, almost signalling the end of the world, or certainly at least the end of the Second Republic.
Craxi beatified, Berlusconi saved
The fact that Craxi is being beatified instead of being left to rest in peace 11 years on from his death makes one wonder why they are so determined in their attempts to overturn final criminal convictions, to eulogise the only politician in Italian history to ever have died while on the run? They are obviously not doing this for Craxi’s sake, after all, no one except his closet relatives really gives a damn about him. No, they’re doing it solely for the living, they eulogise Craxi in an attempt to legitimise the same behaviours exhibited by the living. So, if Craxi was a saint, then so is Berlusconi! After all, in the bars they are saying that both these men love women, they are both somewhat gung-ho with money and both are larger than life personalities. Just look at how the media has handled the matter of the investigation in the so-called Ruby case and you will realise immediately that this is heading in the same direction. Last week I said that “no one gives a damn about what Berlusconi does between the bed sheets in his own home, as long as no crime is being committed between those bed sheets and as long as no other crime is being committed in order to conceal the one committed between the bed sheets, in which case the guilty must be put on trial”. So what did they do? The arsecreeping lackeys of the company newspapers even got together at Arcore to discuss the party line, namely that laid down by Alfonso Signorini who is the most intelligent of the bunch, especially considering some of the others, like Sallusti, etc., so in that company, Signorini has an excellent mind and is very capable in terms of managing this kind of material, at least according to Chi, a magazine read by hundreds of thousands of poorly informed people, but why? Well, precisely because they read Chi. On the other hand, he also presents a television programme on Channel 5 and there he proceeds to haul out Berlusconi’s fiancée whose identity has, unsurprisingly, never been revealed, perhaps because they’re still looking for her. The reason for that is that they need to find some or other woman who is prepared to come out and say openly that she is Berlusconi’s fiancée and to confirm all these things without laughing uncontrollably, so they haven’t yet found anyone. They are busy holding auditions, but as yet they have been unable to find a woman who is prepared to state that she is Berlusconi’s fiancée without bursting out laughing!
Furthermore, she must not be an escort-girl, because that would not do any good. Imagine an escort-girl saying: I am Berlusconi’s girlfriend, I attend the parties but I swear I’m nota n escort-girl. If she were an escort-girl, no one would believe a word she says, so in fact they were searching for someone suitable amongst a number of Bulgarian and Russian women , who also cost less by the way, but they didn’t find anyone suitable even there, so the search goes on but, meanwhile, the search for Berlusconi’s fiancée has been an excellent weapon of mass distraction because that mindless part of the Italian population that sees this whole thing as an episode from a soap-opera and that have no idea whatsoever what it is all about or, for that matter, the seriousness of the situation, have all immediately fallen for the trick concerning Berlusconi’s fiancée hook, line and sinker … big headlines in Libero, in Il Giornale, which are later taken up by the editorials, and so they draw the people’s attention away from the crux of the scandal and keeping them focussed on the sideline issues of the fiancées, the gossip, the ones that say: Man! He has 20 or 30 of them at a time! What a man!. Even Belpietro said it just the other night! In this regard, I think you know why a number of girls tell the pitiful story of these queues standing in front of the Cavaliere’s bedroom door, “Next”, every five minutes, just like tat the clinic with the number in hand, like at the post office, and we’re not talking about a great lover here, this is merely a man who has had certain problems, an operation, a reconstruction and that 5 minutes, plus 5 minutes, plus 5 minutes obviously point to a problem, a pathological problem and not a great lover worthy of boasting on television, yet still they say: See? He has 20 or 30 girls a night, what a man! Other people are envious of him. Can you believe to what level the Italia media have sunk?
These are red herrings merely designed to draw attention to the least important of the issues, namely that of the sex that goes on at Arcore, which would only be of interest in one sense, namely whether or not that sex involved an underage girl and whether that sex was paid for, in which case it would constitute the crime of sexual relations with a minor. As for the rest, how many girls he has, assuming of course that he is still able to “have them” at all, to use the term preferred by those “Shakespeares” of his, or whether their breasts are exposed or not, whether or not they strip, short skirts, tight skirts, panties, g-strings, bras really makes no difference whatsoever, the only issue is whether or not there were underage girls present. Did he or did he not have sex with underage girls? Did he or did he not pay them for sex? If this is not the case, then no crime has been committed and, therefore, he is right in claiming that whatever may go on in his own house, it is entirely his own business, as long as no crime was committed and that it cannot be proven that he paid underage girls for sex and that no crime was committed in order to conceal the fact, because then even his private life becomes of public interest, albeit secondary, but why? Well, because the main issue here is still glossed over by the newspaper headlines and the television programmes, other than Anno Zero that is, namely the extortion that occurred on the night of 27th May, but why? Well, because there is no place to hide in this regard. What happened is well documented and there’s no testimony from a well-paid pimp that can deny the documentary evidence in question. Berlusconi is busy paying off all of those girls, so much so that it is becoming extremely difficult to understand whether he is paying them for services rendered at his house or for providing the Prosecutors with perjured testimony!
Thanks to the efforts of that stalwart journalist, Marco Lillo, Il Fatto Quotidiano has documented payments made up to last Monday, up to one week ago in other words, and so even after the scandal broke in all the newspapers, including a payment made to a certain Ms. Sorcinelli, while she were already talking to the investigators. Ongoing payments that went on for months and amounting to a total of 115-thousand Euro in less than a year, a very healthy managerial salary you might say. The last payment of 10-thousand Euro having been made just last Monday, after she had already spoken to the investigators. Is this another repeat of the Mills case or are these also payments for the Bunga Bunga parties? Who knows, but it is certainly interesting to note that the individual under investigation pays the witness both during and after she has testified before the investigators. But there’s nowhere to hide as regards the matter of what happened at the Police Station, but why? Well, because all telephone calls to the Police Station are recorded, and then there are the police reports detailing the course of events, so what does he do? Well he gets Piero Colaprico to do an article on what happened at the Police Station, in an attempt to shift attention to the issue of the International problem of underage prostitution, meanwhile, the main legal issue here for the Prosecutors is the extortion. While a conviction on charges of underage prostitution carries a penalty of 4 years imprisonment, that of extortion carries a maximum penalty of 12 years.
Piero Colaprico writes: “Corso Buenos Aires, 19h13, Hermes C. (a policeman) attempts to use the 113 service that records all calls to contact the child protection Prosecutor on duty, namely Anna Maria Fiorillo, to inform her of the arrest of Ruby, who had just been picked up in response to a complaint by a friend that Ruby had just stolen a few thousand Euro from her.
While waiting to be connected to Ms. Fiorillo, the policeman says to Ruby: “then I’m going to break your legs the next time I find you out on the streets”. Ruby is heard in the background, saying: “then I will come and have sex with you”. The policeman says: “no way you are going anywhere with me”. Meanwhile, the Prosecutor on duty, namely Ms. Fiorillo, arrives and the policeman explains that the girl is Moroccan, underage, who has escaped from a shelter and is accused of a theft in Milan, that she has no fixed abode and no identity documents. Ms. Fiorillo says: “could you ask the girl how she paid her rent?” in order to try to work out what she did for a living and if she at least had a steady job. The policeman agrees and asks the girl “how did you earn enough to pay your rent?” and the tells Ms. Fiorillo that: “she says that she works as a belly dancer at a number of Milan clubs”. Ms. Fiorillo says: “Oh, I get it, a belly dancer, we are not in the habit of letting underage girls go around doing this, yes, tell her that I don’t believe that she will be able to stay in Italy. She will soon come of age and if she continues the way she is going she will be expelled from the Country, unless she’s willing to enter an education program”, in other words, she must stop running away and wasting our time.
Policeman: “the computer records reveal a previous arrest for theft”. Fiorillo: “so you see, this is a wild one, so place her in a shelter, hoping that there is still one open at this time, but if they can’t take her – it’s already 19h30 – is there is any shelter that is open and that can take her, etc, then take her there” “if they won’t take her then I authorise you to hold her in custody until tomorrow morning when the emergency care service opens and can take in, there is a municipal emergency care service that finds shelters that are able to take in underage girls in trouble or to trace the girl’s father”. Up to this point, the procedures were followed to the letter, because that is precisely what happens in such cases. Obviously no one was aware of Berlusconi’s shadow behind this girl, so they were dealing with Ruby as they would have dealt with any other underage girl in this situation, namely underage girls arrested, with no fixed abode, without any identity document and without a job. They are either placed in a shelter or held at the Police Station.
These procedures work and things are always done this way. Still via the 113 service, at 20h43 the policeman advises the Police Chief on duty at the Police Station, Dr Giorgia Iafrate, who already knows the drill: “we’ll hold her here until tomorrow morning and then we’ll find a shelter for her” says Dr. Iafrate, so the policeman says: “please note that this is a little slip of a girl”, at which point Ruby starts arguing with the policeman, objecting to being labelled as ”a slip of a girl” and the policeman says: “I wasn’t being nasty, just calm down”. Dr. Iafrate intervenes by saying: “but why, what is this little girl wearing?”. Policeman: “a skimpy top, jeans and nothing else”. Ruby was somewhat underdressed, so the police had the right to take her to pick up some other clothes at the house of the friend that was hosting her, Michelle Consesao, who also happens to be a Brazilian prostitute. However, in the meantime, Michelle goes into a flat spin, so what does she do? She calls Berlusconi’s accountant, Giuseppe Spinelli, as well as Silvino Berlusconi. This Brazilian prostitute who lives in the vicinity of Corso Buenos Aires has the private cell phone number of Berlusconi, who happens to be in Paris on Government business at the time, but he doesn’t take the call because he was busy having dinner with other guests.
Berlusconi’s extortion
So she sends an SMS, by now it was 23h49, and while policeman Landolfi was busy trying to find a shelter that could take Ruby in, along comes Berlusconi’s telephone call. Colaprico writes that: Now everyone knows that Ruby was at the Police Station in Milan, a rather disturbing event at that, . Now everyone knows, so you can just imagine the confusion at the Police Station, what with Berlusconi’s telephone call from Paris and all the rest, they must have felt like the world was falling around their ears! In such situations all sorts of things can go through your mind, except that he was phoning about Ruby. We read in Police Chief Pietro Ostuni’s report that: “the Premier told me that the police station was holding a young girl of north-African descent and that he was told that she is Mubarak’s grand-daughter and that a Parliamentary Councillor by the name of Mrs. Minetti would come and take custody of the girl”. In reality, Ms. Minetti is herself a former showgirl and now a Regional Councillor that Berlusconi falsely referred to as Parliamentary Councillor and that he had told to go and pick Ruby up. Ms. Minetti would apparently take custody of the girl and look after her and that’s how the telephone call ended. At this point it is clear that Berlusconi knew only too well that the girl was underage, otherwise he would not have taken the trouble to send someone to take custody of her. If she had come of age, and they decided to release her, there would not have been any need for anyone to take custody of her since adults are responsible for themselves.
A fleet of telephone calls from Ostini then begins to rain down upon this newly qualified Policewoman Iafratti and Ostuni begins to harass Iafratti. From Police Chief Vincenzo Indolfi’s official report, we read that “I became concerned about whether or not this underage girl’s case had been handled properly. The fact that the Prime Minister told a lie was not so important to me”. So the Police Chief of Milan reports that The Prime Minister lied when he said that Ruby was Mubarak’s grand-daughter, and thereby hinted that this could lead to an International incident, upset the entire Police Station, causing them to do something that they would not otherwise have done if there had been no telephone call, but why? Well, because everything was proceeding as normal in such cases, in other words, either the girl would have been placed in a shelter or she would have remained at the Police Station until she could be placed in a shelter.
Indolfi says: “The fact that Berlusconi lied to us was neither here nor there as far as I’m concerned, I merely wanted to make sure that the proper procedures had been followed”. However, from that moment on, nothing went according to plan. A fax was sent to a shelter in Sicily, one of the shelters where she had previously stayed. But the cops’ report tells a different story. Ruby was released at 02h00, accompanied by Ms. Minetti who, instead of taking care of the girl as Berlusconi stated she would, simply dumped her onto Michelle Consesao, thus putting her back in the hands of another prostitute, and Berlusconi says: “I stepped in to save this girl”! In other words, to save her from the Police, Berlusconi has Minetti deliver her to a prostitute, what a great rescue that is! They simply put her back on the streets! To save her from the Police, not from prostitution, they send her back to work as a prostitute, the Prime Minister and an appointed Regional Councillor, or so-called parliamentary councillor!
So while Ruby was released into Ms. Minetti’s custody at 02h00, back at the Police Station they continued to track her identity, which they should have done prior to re leasing her. Finally, at 4am they managed to trace her parents who live in a ?Letojanni? in Messina Province if I’m not mistaken. Upon being unceremoniously pulled out of bed, her parents state that they don’t have their daughter’s identity document and they say that they are in no way related to Mubarak. No surprise there since they are Moroccan and Mubarak is President of Egypt!
Another little-known detail is that when Ms. Bocassini and the other Prosecutors questioned Ostuni, they asked: “Why does this report make no mention of the telephone call from the Prime Minister, nor of the lie that was told to the policemen?” Colaprico notes that Ostuni could not answer and couldn’t account for this fact, so the report was incomplete, but if anyone else had dreamed up such a lie, what police action would have resulted? Was it perhaps his position as the Head of Government that enabled Berlusconi to get something that is not granted to us mere mortals?
Obviously this is the problem. The facts are what they are, this much we understand. The Police Station did something that they would never have done were it not for Berlusconi’s phone call. The other night on television, Belpietro, who knows absolutely nothing about the law, said that: “If there was indeed any collusion, then the Prosecutors should charge the Police Officials who released Ruby prior to having confirmed her real identity and countermanding the orders given by the Prosecutor on duty. If they didn’t incriminate these officials the nit means that everything occurred as normal, and if everything occurred as normal, the nit means that there was no extortion by Berlusconi. Extortion is when one individual threatens another in order to get him/her to do something he/she shouldn’t do, so if there was nothing untoward done, then there was obviously no extortion.
The problem is that the crime of extortion is not committed by both the extortionist and the victim. The extortionist is the one committing the crime, while the individual being threatened is the victim and if he/she is forced to do something he/she shouldn’t do, then he/she is a victim and should not be prosecuted. It’s exactly the same situation as someone who pays protection money to the mafia, where the conclusion is the extortion committed by a public official. If I as a mafioso force a trader to pay me protection money and the trader gives me money, thus funding a mafia member, what is that? Aiding and abetting the Mafia? Yet he does not get punished, but why? Well, because he acted under extreme pressure, so he/she is a victim. That’s why the police officers that were pressured are not being prosecuted for re leasing Ruby.
These are the facts that demonstrate monumental abuse of power and a judge must decide whether or not a crime has been committed, however, we can nevertheless say that it was abuse of power since we have a blow-by-blow account of exactly what happened that night. This abuse of power constitutes sufficient grounds for the Milan Prosecution to take action. The next question is whether or not this was a ministerial crime? Be very careful here because this can easily turn into a play on words, but the situation is actually very clear indeed. A Ministerial crime is different from a normal crime, but why? Well, because in the case of a ministerial crime, prior authorisation is required from Parliament in order to prosecute the perpetrator, that’s because in order for any member of the Premier’s Government or other Minister to be prosecuted for any crimes committed whilst carrying out their official duties, permission to proceed must first be obtained from Parliament and, given that we know exactly who is in Parliament, there would be no trial since Parliament would most certainly deny permission for the Ministerial Court to try Berlusconi who they will rule was merely carrying out his duties according to the Constitution.
But what does “carrying out his duties” actually mean? It means doing that which is required of a Prime Minister, but does that include phoning Police Stations and telling them what to do with underage Moroccan girls arrested for theft, without fixed abode, with no identity documents, etc.? No, this is certainly not amongst the Prime Minister’s official duties. Now I don’t know if it perhaps falls within the scope of the duties of the Minister for Internal Affairs, I don’t believe so, but it is certainly not the Prime Minister’s duty, not in his official capacity anyway, and when he made that telephone call, he didn’t say “I’m Joe Soap”, he said “I’m the Prime Minister and it’s obvious that he phoned in his official capacity, so what now? So it’s no longer classified as abuse of power because that’s not part of his job. It’s now called abuse of office. He abused his position as Prime Minister , so it’s no longer a matter requiring permission to proceed, in which case he would have been safe because such permission would undoubtedly have been denied. Instead, he abused the Office of Prime Minister in order to do something that is certainly not part of his job, even though he did so as the incumbent Prime Minister, otherwise he would not have frightened anyone into doing anything, get it? If I, as a magistrate or a policeman, go into a restaurant and say “give me a free meal or I will arrest you” and it is obviously within your powers to arrest someone, then I’m abusing my official powers.
If, instead, as a policeman I walk into a shop and say give me money otherwise I’ll clout you, clouting someone is not within my powers as policeman, so now do you understand the fine distinction at play here?
So there is no doubt that this does not qualify as a Ministerial crime and, as a normal crime, the jurisdiction lies with the Milan Court, without any permission required from Parliament.
Finally, what happens next? The question is will they or won’t they prosecute him? How can he get away with it? How can he wangle his way out of this one? What is the story with the expedited proceedings, what could happen? I conclude by explaining what could happen now.
The Milan Prosecution has asked for the expedited procedure, or rather they have announced that they will be applying for the expedited procedure, as contemplated in Art. 453 of the Criminal Code and Procedure, which provides for an immediate trial in the case of extreme urgency, but when and where does this apply? Well, it applies when the Prosecution has such indisputable proof that the normal preliminary steps, like preliminary hearings, etc. become irrelevant. The case goes straight to trial based on all the evidence that has been gathered, so the case immediately goes before the appointed judge.
Expedited prosecution for Berlusconi
When the evidence is apparently overwhelming, an expedited trial can be requested once the person under investigation has been questioned regarding the overwhelming evidence, or after the individual has failed to appear after being summonsed, subject to legitimate impediment, or where the person is untraceable, so what did the Prosecution do? They summonsed Berlusconi to appear whenever it suited him anytime between Friday and Sunday, namely the 21/22/23 January. He failed to appear, even on the Sunday and there did not appear to be any legitimate impediment. At that point they said: okay, you have chosen not to come in for questioning, the conditions have been met, we believe that the evidence we have against you is overwhelming, so now the third and last requirement is that the Prosecutors must formulate their charges within 90 days after the registration of the crime. Berlusconi name was entered into the register on 21 December, so the Prosecutors have until 21 March to lodge their application for an expedited trial with the Preliminary Investigations Magistrate. One month has already passed, so the Prosecutors still have two months to lodge their application, at which point the Preliminary Investigations Magistrate may grant the request if he feels that the grounds are sufficient and thus remand Berlusconi for immediate trial.
Within five days after submission of the request, the judge must either issue a decree providing for immediate trial and order that the documentation be sent to the Prosecution, or decide that there are insufficient grounds for an immediate trial and order that the normal prosecution process be used, including preliminary hearings and the usual remand for trial or absolution. The Decree issued must also specify that the accused can ask for an expedited trial or try to plea-bargain, which would mean that everything is done entirely in chambers, behind closed doors, without any television cameras, without any journalists and without any witnesses, so what happens is that the trial will be based entirely on the available documentation, there is not much discussion at all and plea-bargains can be struck, however, I doubt very much whether Berlusconi would ever agree to a plea-bargain, that’s the last thing on his mind!
Once an expedited trial has been arranged, the proceeding take place in Court according to the same rules as a normal trial, except that everything is done more quickly, skipping the preliminary hearings and the submission of evidence. At this point, however, they are claiming that the Milan Court doesn’t have jurisdiction because Arcore falls under Monza. Besides the fact that the Monza Court’s jurisdiction does not extend to underage prostitution cases, for which the District Prosecutions have jurisdiction, in this case the Milan Prosecution, the events that took place at the Police Station fall squarely under the jurisdiction of the Milan Court, so their only hope is to get the case handed over to the Ministerial Court, but there is no way that this case can be handed over to the Ministerial Court, but why? Well, because neither Berlusconi nor Ghedini can get the case moved to the Ministerial Court, only the Prosecution can do that and they’ve already made it clear that this was not a Ministerial crime in their opinion.. Furthermore, I forgot to mention that constitutional Law No. 1/1991 stipulates that for a crime to be classified as a Ministerial crime, it must have been committed in the significant interests of the State, in other words, in order to further the aims of public interest, that’s what constitutional law No. 1, dated 16 January 1991, states that governs ministerial crimes. You can imagine if underage prostitution or telephone calls to a Police Station to demand someone’s release, bypassing normal procedures, could ever be covered by such a law. It has to have been done in the Public interest, and in this case it was more like Pubic interest than Public Interest!
So there is no possible reason, or for that matter any other way by which Berlusconi could get his case heard in the Ministerial Court, so what else can he do? He has already threatened to raise an issue of a conflict of interests between the judiciary and the State before the Constitutional Court, citing the Milan judges that are refusing to allow the case to be heard in the Ministerial Court, some may say: but if Berlusconi or his attorneys use their parliamentary majority to force the issue and drag the Milan judges before the Constitutional Committee for refusing to allow the case to be heard by the Ministerial Court, then what will come of this case? Well, there would be no valid grounds for the Constitutional Committee to rule on such a patently bullshit claim anyway, but given the slow pace at which the Constitutional Committee operates, irrespective of whether they find for Chamber of Deputies or for the Milan judges, what would happen in the meantime as regards the expedited trial? Does it continue or is it suspended? Because if Berlusconi somehow manages to get his conflict of power claim to stop the trial for the next two years, then so much for expedited trials and so it’s back to square one!
Fortunately for us, however, such a claim before the Constitutional Committee would not hold up or suspend the expedited trial, which would continue in any event. It’s already happened before with conflict of poker claims against the Milan Prosecution in the Abu Omar case, yet the trial continues and it stops just short of handing down sentence in order to await the ruling of the Constitutional Court, so Berlusconi’s case will go ahead anyway, even if the conflict of powers issue is raised and only the final ruling will be withheld until the Constitutional Court has reached its decision.
I hope I have managed to clarify the issue for you, so let’s just say that this time it really looks as if Berlusconi is balls to the wall, barring any other tricks that neither we nor Berlusconi have thought about yet and he will have to defend himself, not against allegations but against facts, starting with what he really did that night at the Police Station.
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