From Sigonella to Öcalan, passing through Cermis, governments several times have had to make uncomfortable decisions to protect the country. But in no case premier and ministers ended up under investigation.
But who is the task of protecting national interest? To justice or politics? It is obvious, I will not even be able to discuss it: it is the political authority, that is, the government, which takes care of defining and defending national interest. And recent history is scattered with examples in which the executive of the moment has chosen to make the good of the country prevail, closing an eye and sometimes both of some chores that could have been the subject of interest of the judiciary. And at the same time, the judges looked at each other well from putting mouth on a decision that was of pure political competence. The case most similar to what is now contested to the ministers of the Interior and Justice Matteo Plantedosi and Carlo Nordio and to the Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano is the liberation of the head of the seizure of the Accella Lauro. We are talking about a story in forty years ago, when Bettino Craxi was at Palazzo Chigi. A group of Palestinian terrorists took control of the cruise ship and assassinated an American Jew, threatening to kill other passengers. After a long and delicate negotiation, the commando surrendered to Egypt, freeing everyone in change of impunity. Two days later, while the hijackers were about to be transferred to Lebanon, two US hunting built the Boeing on which they traveled to land in the Sicilian Sigonella Air Base. Well, first Craxi surrounded the plane from the carabinieri, preventing the Marines from the arrest of the kidnappers, then led the head of the commando with a military escort of F14. Craxi, who was certainly not much loved by the prosecutors, as we had the opportunity to find a few years later, was certainly not pursued by the judiciary for having freed a terrorist, killer and kidnapper and certainly had acted in the name of the national interest.
The same can be said of what happened after the Cermis massacre. Remember? In 1998 an American plane, while the pilots played to do the top guns flying at low altitude, sliced the cables of a cable car near Cavalese: 20 people died. However, the government of the time, which had Romano Prodi as Prime Minister, Walter Veltroni as deputy, Giorgio Napolitano of the Interior Minister and Giovanni Maria Flick to justice, looked at each other well from arresting the American pilots, who were brought back home without anyone wondering why uniform bullies had been allowed to leave. Once again, the national interest prevailed, without the judiciary opened a procedure to understand if pressure from the United States had been included and if there had been gaps in the failure of two soldiers who, at least, were guilty of the manslaughter of twenty people.
Strange inattention to the rules and international law was also recorded a few months after the massacre of Cermis when, accompanied by the Communist Refoundation deputy Ramon Mantovano, Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the workers of Kurdistan, arrived in Rome, an organization that both Turkey and the United States considered terrorist nature. The head of the PKK was chased by a series of capture mandates issued by Ankara and also reported to Interpol. Moscow, who had welcomed him, invited him to pack his bags and no other country declared himself willing to host him. But in Italy the government of Massimo D’Alema had recently settled. Vice -president of the Council Sergio Mattarella, with delegation to the secret services, Minister of Justice Oliviero Diliberto while inside there was Rosa Russo Jervolino. At the beginning, probably in the name of the municipality I believe political creed, D’Alema and his companions seemed willing to offer hospitality to the fugitive, but then, in the face of the pressures of Turkey, instead of holding it back, as would have been normal as it was accused of serious crimes, they left him to flee to Kenya, where he was then arrested by the Turkish secret services. Also in this case, no one came to mind to ask D’Alema, Mattarella, Diliberto and his companions beautiful the reasons for their behavior. The Rome Prosecutor’s Office – who was not yet lined up by Francesco Lo Voi – I do not know that he opened any files, nor does it seem to me that they were asked for light on the lack of arrest. Evidently, even without state secret, the national interest that required not to fight with the Turks had triumphed in the complete disinterest of the judiciary.
I could continue with other examples (such as the rejection of thousands of Albanians locked up in the Bari stadium without any judge asked the question if the Albania of the time being a safe country: it was not), but I think those mentioned to answer a simple question are enough: in the Almasri affair Giorgia Meloni is right to talk about political initiative or are the magistrates right? After what I told you, you decide and then ask yourself if the time has not come to make a reform of justice that does the interest of the Italians and not only that of the currents of the judiciary.
