Giorgia Meloni is under investigation for aiding and abetting and embezzlement in relation to the case of the repatriation of Libyan general Almasri .

The announcement was made by the Prime Minister herself in a video on social media: "Today's news is this. The Public Prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi, the same one from the failed trial of Matteo Salvini for kidnapping, has just sent me a notice of investigation for the crimes of aiding and abetting and embezzlement in relation to the affair of the repatriation of the citizen Almasri. Notice of investigation also sent to the ministers Carlo Nordio (Justice, ed.), Matteo Piantedosi (Interior, ed.) and Alfredo Mantovano (undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council, ed.) I presume following a complaint that was filed by the lawyer Luigi Li Gotti, a former left-wing politician very close to Romano Prodi , known for having defended informers of the caliber of Buscetta, Brusca and other mafiosi".

" I cannot be blackmailed and I will not be intimidated - thunders Meloni -, it is possible that for this reason I am disliked by those who do not want Italy to change and become better, but also and above all for this reason I continue on my path in defense of Italians, especially when the security of the nation is at stake. With my head held high and without fear".

The Prime Minister also criticized the International Criminal Court: "The facts - she said - are well known, the ICC after months of reflection issued an international arrest warrant against the head of the judicial police of Tripoli, curiously it did so just when this person was about to enter Italian territory after having peacefully stayed in three other European states for 12 days ".

The arrest request of the ICC, continues the Prime Minister, «was not transmitted to the Italian Ministry of Justice, as required by law, and for this reason the Court of Appeal of Rome decides not to validate the arrest. At that point, with this individual free on Italian territory, rather than leave him free we decide to expel him and repatriate him immediately for security reasons , as happens in other similar cases».

The complaint

The proceedings, in the hands of the Rome Public Prosecutor's Office, stem from a complaint filed by the lawyer Luigi Li Gotti, in which the crimes of aiding and abetting and embezzlement are alleged in relation to the affair of the repatriation of the Libyan general. The complaint asks the prosecutors of Piazzale Clodio to "carry out investigations into the decisions adopted and aiding Almasri, as well as into the decision to use a state plane to pick up the captured (and freed) person in Turin and take him to Libya ."

In the complaint, transmitted on January 23, Li Gotti, citing the crimes, recalls that according to the crime of aiding and abetting , "anyone who, after a crime has been committed for which the law establishes life imprisonment or imprisonment, and outside the cases of complicity in the same, helps someone to elude the investigations of the Authorities, including those carried out by organs of the International Criminal Court, or to avoid the searches carried out by the same subjects, is punished with imprisonment of up to four years ."

The documents, the Prosecutor's Office specifies, were forwarded to the Board for Ministerial Crimes of the Court of Ministers.

The ANM: «No notice of guarantee»

No notice of investigation, the National Association of Magistrates writes in a note : «In order to clarify, we would like to point out the total misunderstanding by many political figures of the activity carried out by the Rome prosecutor's office, which did not issue, as has been improperly stated by many, a notice of investigation against President Meloni and Ministers Nordio and Piantedosi but a communication of registration which is in itself a required act because it is provided for by art. 6 paragraph 1 of constitutional law no. 1/89. The provision requires the public prosecutor, upon receipt of a complaint against a minister, and omitting any investigation, to transmit, within fifteen days, the documents to the Court of Ministers, immediately communicating them to the interested parties so that they can present briefs to the panel or ask to be heard. It is therefore a required act».

Skip the information

Meanwhile, the briefing scheduled for tomorrow by ministers Piantedosi and Nordio has been cancelled. The presidents of the Chamber and Senate have already been informally notified of the issue. "Unacceptable towards Parliament - said the secretary of Più Europa, Riccardo Magi - yet another kick that the Meloni government gives to parliamentary democracy. President Fontana should formally protest, given that the action of the Rome Prosecutor's Office is nothing more than an act due following a complaint".

The General's Accusations, Arrest and Release

In Mitiga prison in Tripoli, directed by Almasri, at least 34 inmates were killed and 22 people, including a 5-year-old boy, were sexually abused by guards. Hence the international arrest warrant issued on January 18 against the Libyan general who, according to the judges in The Hague, "has personally beaten, tortured, shot, sexually assaulted and killed inmates, as well as ordered the guards to beat and torture them" .

Arrested in Turin on January 18, Almasri was released from prison within 96 hours . The arrest was not validated and he was accompanied to Caselle airport, where he was taken back to Tripoli on a state flight.

The case has been at the center of a dispute between magistrates and the government, after the ICC asked Italy for clarifications on the repatriation of the general. The ANM accused the government and Minister Nordio of inertia. Giorgia Meloni and ministers Nordio and Piantedosi maintain that, once released from prison by the judges, the Libyan general was expelled urgently for public safety, given his dangerousness .

The reactions

For Matteo Salvini, the notice of investigation " is a disgrace ." "The same prosecutor who accused me in Palermo is now trying again in Rome with the center-right government. Justice reform, now!", the deputy prime minister wrote on social media.

"I am on the side of Giorgia Meloni, Matteo Piantedosi, Nordio and Mantovano. I defend the separation of powers and condemn choices that sound like a reprisal for the reform of justice ", comments Antonio Tajani, defining the magistrates' action "an attack on the government that must be totally rejected" .

Carlo Calenda , while acknowledging that the government has "made a mess" and "told a load of bullshit to Italians" over Almasri, maintains that it is " surreal that a prime minister is being investigated for an act that evidently responds to a "reason of state" , even if never admitted". Something like this, he continues, "would not happen in any other Western country".

Matteo Renzi also speaks of the Almasri case as a "glaring and glaring error from a political perspective". But on the judicial level, the leader of IV continues, "I won't express an opinion, I'm a guarantor, and I have the impression that Giorgia Meloni wants to ride this notice of investigation, which is a necessary act, to fuel her natural victim mentality ".

"The recipe of Meloni and co. is always the same: conspiracy and victimhood, from trains to migrants. Don't let yourselves be distracted: they do it to avoid talking about their mistakes", writes on social media the leader of the M5S Giuseppe Conte , who on the Almasri case speaks of a "political disaster" of the government, which "has lined up lies and different versions, without really explaining to us why they put a Libyan criminal on a state flight at our expense and with all the honors instead of handing him over to the ICC" .

Democratic Party secretary Elly Schlein : «Judicial issues are not part of our work, but it is on the political level that we have insisted from the beginning , asking Giorgia Meloni not to hide behind her ministers and to come to the Chamber herself tomorrow to explain to the country why the government chose to escort home a Libyan torturer for whom the International Criminal Court had issued an arrest warrant».

Senator Sandra Zampa, Romano Prodi's former spokesperson at Palazzo Chigi , also intervened on the prime minister's statements to deny the link hinted at by Meloni between the author of the complaint and the former prime minister: "By bringing up Romano Prodi more than inappropriately, Meloni confirms two things: that she doesn't know the ABC of institutional respect and that she has evidently developed a strange obsession with Prodi. Two facts are enough to deny it: Li Gotti's political career began with the Italian Social Movement and continued in the National Alliance . Li Gotti certainly frequented circles close to Meloni for a much longer time than the center-left. He then joined Italy of Values and was indicated by the secretary of that party as undersecretary of the second Prodi government. But there was no particular friendship or acquaintance between Li Gotti and Romano Prodi , so much so that they have not had any contact since 2008. This time too, Meloni, with her obsessions, has hit the wrong target."

(Unioneonline/L)

© Riproduzione riservata