13 June 2006

16 - Berlusconi

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

GV: Even Silvio Berlusconi frequently complained that he was persecuted and sustained that his companies were scrutinised more than any others. Did you focus on him because he was a friend of Craxi? Is this why you concentrated so decidedly on him?
ADP: Focus on him? We gave much more attention to other people. It’s not true that we investigated a single company and not others. Berlusconi was one of those I investigated for 3 or 4 cases of corruption. For these he was convicted and then on appeal he was allowed off on the grounds of “prescrizione” {time delay too long}. We arrested and interrogated dozens of managers and directors of Fiat, even at the top levels like Romiti, Mattioli and many others.
At Fiat we discovered about 40,000,000,000 in bribes. This was the so-called 'tesoretto'. In Berlusconi’s case we took action at the start for only 300,000,000 in bribes. Then as the investigation proceeded we discovered many other things, starting from the financial transactions in the Iberian account that finished up in his “off-shore holdings”.
However he started to shout out straight away and he never wanted to accept the trial process. Unlike him, those in Fiat and many other business people presented their own reasons and those of their companies in their trials, as I also did when I too was investigated.
For example, the former CEO of Fiat, Cesare Romiti ended up in front of the Supreme Court for false accounting, but he always maintained a behaviour of loyalty in relation to the magistrates and the trial proceedings relating to him never had a particularly high profile in the press.

GV: In fact, are you saying that Berlusconi put into practice a specific communication strategy?
ADP: Well, it’s clear to me that he chose an approach to the trial that was different from many others in his position.
In fact, he used the same strategy as his friend Craxi: “No one can judge me and whoever does that is either a communist or a plotter.”
Like Craxi, Berlusconi decided to attack and he kept to the line that the action taken by the magistrates was a political action against him and not the obligatory action in line with criminal proceedings taken by magistrates who had decided to carry out their duty.
His action was a true media campaign with massive spending and massive use of personnel. Using the TV channels and newspapers that he owned, he managed to sow the seed of doubt in public opinion. In the public imagination, he managed to transform the defendants into victims and to change their judges into attackers.
The result is what we can all see. Everyone has lost their memory about what happened in the years of the First Republic and already there are those who say “it was better when it was worse”. A great education for future generations! And this is the statesman who should be leading us in the Second Republic? Do me a favour!

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Interview about Tangentopoli