31 May 2006

12 - Gardini

I’m continuing to publish some questions and answers from the book "Intervista su Tangentopoli" published by Laterza and edited by Giovanni Valentini.

GV: What was the trigger that made Gardini take his own life?

ADP: An act of pride. His action must have been an act of pride. This is the idea that came to me. Gardini passed a whole night knowing that the following day he would be arrested. A night in which he understood that his whole world was about to finish. This was something we had not reckoned with. I hadn’t, nor had his lawyers.
Up until that time, we judges knew only a small segment of the Enimont proceedings. We didn’t by then know exactly to whom the 150,000,000,000 of the maxi-bribe went. In fact we didn’t even know of the existence of a bribe of that size.
We didn’t even know of the existence of the missing 63,000,000,000 that Cusani said he had given back to Gardini: whether it was true or not, it’s certain that someone must have taken this money.
However Gardini knew this and more. He knew about the relationship between Montedison and the Rome constructor Bonifaci. He probably knew about the intrigues surrounding the accountant Melpignano and about the buying and selling of property Montedison-Bonifaci and so on.
There was a mountain of stuff he should have come to tell the magistrates. Thus I believe that his has an instinctive reaction. I believe that it was not meditated, that it was a desperate gesture, a challenge, a final clamorous act of a great protagonist on the scene. Of course, up until a few minutes before, he was getting ready to come to the Procura {Prosecutor’s office}.

GV: However, the pistol was found on an item of furniture, far away from the body. Have you never had any suspicion about the suicide?

ADP: No. Gardini’s was a real suicide. I’m certain of that. I arrived straight away, a few minutes after the death. Because as I said, I was waiting for him in my office at Palazzo di Giustizia {Palace of Justice}, at 500 metres from his house.
And I could listen to the witnesses straight away. There were the service personnel. As soon as the domestic staff realised what had happened, while attempting to resuscitate him, they moved the pistol and put it on a small table.

GV: Did someone admit that they had moved the pistol?

ADP: Yes. It’s been proved. It’s all proved. My colleague Licia Scagliarini of the Procura di Milano {Milan Prosecutor’s office} conducted an investigation within the investigation. Everything was reconstructed. Even the final phone calls made by Gardini using the telephone accounts.
...
I really believe that his was a sudden and desperate action by a gambler who realised that he had lost the final game and who felt he had arrived at the end of the road.

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Interview about Tangentopoli