Almasri Case: "For dignity's sake, Nordio must resign": Serracchiani urges the minister.

There's no longer any doubt : Carlo Nordio , speaking in Parliament on the Almasri case, didn't tell the truth. The Minister of Justice's assertion that on the morning of January 19th, following the arrest of the Libyan general the previous evening in Turin, only " scarce and completely generic" information had reached the Ministry of Justice is untrue.

Everything was already clear, so much so that in the early afternoon of January 19th, the then head of the Department of Administration of Justice on Via Arenula, Magistrate Luigi Birritteri, wrote to Cabinet Chief Giusi Bartolozzi to urge the minister to take " urgent action" to detain Almasri. Birritteri, as exclusively reported by L'Unità on May 30th, fully understood the gravity of what was happening, while also providing a solution, via a draft measure, to properly execute the international arrest warrant issued by the Hague Tribunal against Almasri, responsible for torturing and abusing dozens of migrants held in the terrible Mitiga camp. The incident was reported this weekend by all the major newspapers, which reconstructed what happened in those frantic hours, with Birritteri's order remaining unanswered and the Intelligence Falcon flying to Turin on the morning of January 21st to accompany Almasri back to Tripoli, where he will be welcomed with full honors.

In recent weeks, Nordio has continued to assert the exact opposite, denying the true content of the email exchanges between Birritteri and his loyal chief of staff. But that's not all. To try to save himself and divert media attention, the other day he decided to play a major role, with great disdain for ridicule, going so far as to invoke a phantom "plot" against him hatched by the judiciary seeking to block justice reform. This accusation was immediately rejected by prosecutor Rocco Maruotti, secretary general of the ANM, who branded it " false and offensive." This is an extremely "clumsy" attempt, Maruotti added, speaking on the matter to the ANM's Central Steering Committee last weekend in Rome. That Nordio's reconstruction of the events was, to put it mildly, incorrect is demonstrated by the deafening silence of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who didn't feel the need to say a word in defense of her minister.

"Nordio must resign for the sake of dignity," Debora Serracchiani, the Democratic Party's justice minister, declared yesterday in an interview with Repubblica . " The minister uses arrogance and numerous quotes when he needs to get out of embarrassment," Serracchiani added, referring to one of Nordio's last remarks to journalists. “ You know what General McAuliff said at the siege of Bastogne: 'Nuts'” (which can essentially be interpreted as 'go to hell'),” he commented to those who asked him if he had considered resigning. Nordio is acting like a bully and feels safe thanks to his botched justice reform, the only one of all the reforms put in place by the government that has any chance of being implemented after the debacle of the premiership and differentiated autonomy. And the same goes for the chief of staff. Despite the mess of the Almasri case and the failed management of the Ministry of Justice, characterized by a stampede of managers at odds with Bartolozzi, starting with Birritteri himself, and with the concrete risk of not meeting the objectives of the PNRR regarding the reduction of the backlog and the time taken to resolve cases, barring a highly unlikely reaction from Meloni, Nordio can continue to cause damage to Via Arenula and dabble in in learned historical quotations.

In recent months, remembering the toga he wore for over 40 years, he should have done only one thing: be questioned by the judges who make up the tribunal of ministers called to verify whether his conduct in this affair was unlawful, a decision expected shortly. The Keeper of the Seals has consistently avoided appearing at Piazzale Clodio to answer his colleagues' questions, perhaps for fear of creating further problems at Palazzo Chigi. "Almasri's release was not without a decision made at the highest levels of government, therefore by Meloni ," declared yesterday the leader of the Green and Left Alliance, Peppe De Cristofaro . " Without her direct intervention, it is unthinkable that Nordio would have assumed such responsibility. Therefore, the main culprit is Meloni, and Nordio is merely the fig leaf," added De Cristofaro. If Nordio falls, Meloni falls. And even Bartolozzi, who knows he is in safe hands, is well aware of this. Tribunal of ministers permitting.

FROM

Paul Comi