Should you not be familiar with their names… here’s the profile for Marcello Dell’Utri, here’s the one for Silvio Berlusconi.
Do you remember that Mr Berlusconi has been Prime Minister in Italy four times… yes? Now read this.
Welcome to Casoria: Antonio Manfredi, director of CAM (Contemporary Art Museum) of Casoria, burns a painting of French artist Severine Bourguignon (Reuters/Stringer)
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Welcome to Naples (yes, it’s near Casoria) where books are missing from an ancient library.
That was the age of Carmela Frassanito when she commited suicide. She would have been 18 today and her father is asking justice for his doughter.She had been raped by 5 men in 2005.
All of them were identified and borught to justice. Luckily for them it is italian justice and so, as of today – 5 years after, this is how things are: the 2 that at the time were underage were not even sent to court, the trial for the 3 adults is still on, with one hearing every 6 months.
Could have been the 3 years that 21 years od had to wait to be discharged from an accusation of theft. In the summer of 2009 he ahd allegedly taken 1 Kinder Egg from a bar on the beach. Trial proved that he had in fact taken the egg and was just waiting his turn to pay for it at the counter. Moerover, wearing just a swimming suit, he couldn’t possibly hide it anywhere.
3 years. A Kinder egg was sold for around 1.50 usd.
It all started with an issue from The Guardian where Tom Kington wrote about advertising firms planting thousands of billboards across Rome.
The billboards are often erected along kerbs, towering over head height and obscuring bus stops and street signs. Recently a hoarding was put up so close to passing traffic on Via Tuscolana that a moped driver and his passenger were killed when they collided with it.
Rome’s mayor, Gianni Alemanno, a former neo-fascist elected on Silvio Berlusconi’s ticket in 2008, was forced to take notice when the head of Telecom Italia, one of Italy’s biggest advertisers, said he was so disgusted by the “jungle” of billboards that he was pulling all his street ads from the city.
Now we find out that Police is investigating more than 40 advertising company and the person head of the office that should have taken care of the scandal.
In april 1999 Italian Government launched “Missione Arcobaleno” aimed to help the refugees from Kosovo that had “invaded” Albania. (wiki)
Panorama Magazine published in august 1999 an issue reporting the huge waste of money and resources connected with this mission. In the early stage of the police investigations 4 people were arrested in jail for 3 months.
The Inquiry ended in 2007 (!) when a prosecutor from the Tribunal of Bari asked to put under trial 19 people involved in the mismanagement.
Here’s the new of the beginning of the trial, it’s february 2011 nearly 11 years after the scandal. Here’s the announcement of the resurrection of the trial , that had been sleeping for many years before even beginning its public hearings. It was published on october 31st and the first day of the trial was announced for november 9th.
Today the trial was suspended and is set to resume in may 2012, when all the charges will have to be dropped because of the too many years that were wasted.
In the summer of 2006 the parents of 3 chidren of 4 accused teachers and caretakers of the pre-school their children were attending in Rignano Flaminio (near Rome), of sexual abusing the kids. The case seems to be very weak and highly controversial: no evidence are found and the only basis is the children’s story, that comes out after they’ve been questioned by their parents. (link to Reuters)
The trial begins and, as it goes on, all the charges seems to be extremely weak as reported in many papers and books about the subject. It is now 4 years after the start of the trial, the end is nowhere to be seen…Now it turns out that one of the Judges that form the Court has been appointed to a new post and the trial has to restart from scratch with a substitute. (ita – google translated)
In 1985 mr. Luciano Sgarlata went bankrupt making disappear many millions of lire of italian family savings.
The trial is still on (!) and the court has recently ruled to have a new expertise to define how much every single investor had lost. The accountant that gave the report was awarded compensation for 500.000,00 euro, that the court has ruled must be payed (now) by the victims of the swindle – the defendant has not ben sentenced yet and is, therefore, innocent ’till proved guilty.
The same court has adjourned the trial to 2014.
(archives on the facts: here, here and here – recent story here)
Here’s The Guardian, today:
What chance would you give any leader of surviving a vote of no confidence after being accused of the following: profiting from energy deals with Russia; paying off the Cosa Nostra for protecting his family; buying the votes of deputies in parliament; intervening with police to secure the release of the 17-year-old belly dancer who claimed she had been the guest of parties which ended in an erotic game known as bunga bunga? And all in the last two months?
If the leader is called Silvio Berlusconi, the chance of survival is quite high.
(the rest is here)
Guido Ruotolo on La Stampa (Turin based newspaper) tells the tale of the 800 italians elected that weren’t even supposed to be on the list they were in.
The “800″ are Members of Parliament, or members of city, province or region council that have had – before the election – problems with justice. The list with their names is at Palazzo San Macuto (home of the Inquisition in XVI century) now home of many Parliament offices.
No one will ever see those names… they are protected by the laws that rules privacy matters: the right of someone trespassing the law prevail on the community right to know who disobey the law. Welcome to Italy.
