10 February 2007

Council of Ministers. The Abu Omar case.

Transcript:
"Today 7 February there was an extraordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers because the events at Catania and the death of Inspector Raciti while carrying out his duties obliged us to take important decisions, in relation to the game of football: access to the stadiums is going ahead only if certain precise rules are respected because it is not acceptable to transform the game into violence.
Thus we have a harsh response from the Government and from the Institutions against those criminals who use the sport to give vent to their violence.
But another decision was taken and I did not agree with this one, unlike the other one. I was the only one to vote against. I am talking about the case that is being considered by the Constitutional Court that came from the Milan magistracy against those who kidnapped Abu Omar, the citizen from the Middle East who was resident in Milan and who was taken by American CIA agents and transferred to Egypt where he was interrogated even violently to get information from him.
The problem is this: Can a foreign State, even a friend like the United States, kidnap people in Italy and take them away secretly?
The Milan magistracy is investigating the people responsible for the kidnapping and has sent for trial certain officials of the Italian Secret Services for complicity; and above all it has requested the arrest of the American agents responsible for the operation.
Even here the State is based on rights. Even here there is the magistracy. If it was thought that Abu Omar had committed crimes, the Italian authorities should have been informed and they could have had extradition proceedings for this gentleman, according to legal regulations.
But it is not possible to come here secretly and kidnap him like the Sardinian bandits do.
The Italian magistracy has issued an International arrest warrant for these CIA agents.
Well, in the Berlusconi government, the Minister Castelli never sent out this arrest warrant.
The problem is that with the Prodi Government, not even the Minister Mastella has done this and yesterday I formally asked the whole government to account for this.
Why is a measure requested by our magistracy not being acted on? Thus a duty of every power of the State, the loyal collaboration with the other powers is not happening.
The Italian Government is a serious government if it respects the other institutions. This is why I do not agree on the fact that up until now these documents to ask for an International arrest warrant for the kidnappers are being “kept on the table”.
What is more, the Council of Ministers has considered it appropriate to promote an action in the Constitutional Court against the Milan judges to say that they must not use the evidence collected against these people, because the affair is covered by State Secrecy.
Here we have to have a clear understanding. State Secrecy makes sense if it is used so that something is not revealed. Thus it is possible to impose State Secrecy to say to Pollari, the General of the Secret Services who is asking to be interrogated in Milan, that “you cannot say what you know because there’s a problem with State security."
But State Secrecy in relation to facts already known, and checked, in the public domain, presented formally by the parties to the case, what kind of State Secret is that?
A secret of fairy tales.
In this situation the Secret is designed not to protect the security of the country but to interrupt the action of the magistracy.
This is why I do not agree to applying State Secrecy to facts that are not only still to be verified but also to those that have already been verified.
The State Secrecy should have been invoked at the time of the actions, not now that there’s the trial. It makes no sense at all.
This double measure, to invoke State Secrecy in relation to facts that are already public and not to exercise the duty to extend the international arrest warrant to people who have committed crimes in our country, I have not agreed to. Even though I was the only one.
No: Not really the only one. Very quietly a few Ministers told me “I agree with you!” But they said it very quietly.

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Information