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

GV: Apart from the personal stories and tragedies, in your investigation, did you find out how the parties shared out the money from the bribes? Was there a rule, some criteria? Those opposing Mani Pulite make out that you didn’t inquire into the PCI {Italian Communist Party} with the same energy that you used for the DC {Christian Democrats} or the PSI {Italian Socialist Party}.

ADP: That’s completely false. Whoever had the face to say something so idiotic is either ignorant (in the technical sense of the word – someone who doesn’t know what is in the trial documents), or has been led astray by the psychological bombing from the usual mass media and TV channels owned by the bosses.
Or still further it might be someone who explicitly in bad faith is talking like that for personal gain or for partisan reasons.
Let’s say straight away that the political system divided the bribes into 4 parts: one went to the DC, on to the PSI, one went to the other powers of the 5-party government in that particular zone (and they then had to divide it up among themselves according to their political weight in each formation) and the last part went to the PCI, usually in the form of work to the Cooperatives that operated in the orbit of the party.
And sometimes with payments of real cash bribes in envelopes, for which we have always taken action each time that we discovered them, in spite of any presumed favouritism.

GV: What does it mean exactly to say “in the form of work”?
ADP: The red Cooperatives didn’t accept money or bribes. In fact, they may have paid them. And in fact their lawyers, when incriminated were considered to be corrupters and not corrupted.
A particular commercial activity was guaranteed to them: that is to say, purchases, contracts. This is the substantial difference. This is why for certain contracts the Co-ops were not brought to trial in the same way. Formally there was no crime. This is simply because they received an order to perform work as a sub-contractor or in an association of companies and the work was carried out effectively.
There was thus an authentic return for the money and the interests of the party were to provide work for the working class.
The accusation against the pool {the team of magistrates} that they favoured the PCI has no foundation neither in heaven nor on earth. Where we found wads of cash offered as bribes we did not hesitate for a moment to bring to justice those responsible. It is not our fault that the PCI often used a different method that produced agreement, a method that can be morally questionable but that is criminally irrelevant.
And we have to keep to the law, not to the Gospels!