Almasri, Nordio knew: the minister lied
The Minister of Justice's alibis have collapsed.
As anticipated in May by Unità, the then head of the Dag Birritteri prepared the provision to keep the Libyan torturer in prison, but the minister ignored it.
Minister Carlo Nordio had known since the morning of January 19 that the International Criminal Court had sent an arrest warrant to Via Arenula for Osama Almasri , the Libyan general who commanded the brutal Tripoli militias dedicated to the murder, torture, and rape of migrants. The Tribunal of Ministers in the capital has definitively confirmed this, concluding its investigation into the general's failure to hand him over this week, thus confirming what was anticipated by l'Unità last May.
Not only was Nordio aware of the Hague judges' order, but his entire staff, starting with his chief of staff, magistrate Giusi Bartolozzi, had that same day instructed the relevant offices to maintain maximum confidentiality and to use exclusively Signal, the highly encrypted messaging app, for communications. What nailed the Nordio & Bartolozzi duo was an email from Luigi Birritteri , then head of the Department of the Administration of Justice (DAG), who had immediately taken action that day to validate the detention and proceed with Almasri's delivery to The Hague. The general had been stopped at dawn by police in Turin, where he had gone to watch a Juventus match. Upon receiving the communication, Birritteri immediately took action and prepared a draft order for Nordio to sign, allowing Almasri to be held in prison, thus remedying the lack of preliminary dialogue with the Ministry, which could have rendered the Libyan's detention ineffective.
The draft, sent by Birritteri via email to the minister's office, and then to Bartolozzi, remained unsigned. Nordio had neither signed it nor responded to the request from the Rome Prosecutor General's Office, which, on January 21 , ordered Almasri's release, and he was then flown home on an intelligence plane. Upon receiving the email, Bartolozzi apparently only urged everyone to exercise caution and use the encrypted chat, which can only be intercepted by powerful Trojans such as Graphite, the spyware used by the intelligence services to listen in on the conversations of Luca Casarini and members of the NGO Mediterranea . It should be noted that in the following weeks, Nordio had provided multiple, often contradictory, accounts of the events . For example, he claimed that Interpol had merely transmitted a simple communication without submitting a formal extradition request. Responding to the Chamber, the Minister of Justice emphasized that only "informal" news had arrived on the morning of January 19th, a communication lacking identifying information and supporting evidence for the arrest. According to Nordio, the extradition request had not even been attached, as it was instead a note full of critical points and in English, with no translation.
"The minister's role isn't just one of transit and paper-pusher, it's a political one: I have the power and duty to engage with other state bodies on the ICC's request, on the details, and on the coherence of the Court's conclusions. This coherence is absolutely lacking for us," Nordio responded sharply, "forgetting" that Birritteri had prepared the measure addressing any potential issues. On that occasion, Nordio had also found time to accuse his critics. It's just "sloppiness," the minister had said. Unlike his cabinet chief, Meloni's Minister of Justice has consistently stayed away from the Rome courthouse in recent weeks to be questioned on this matter. With the closure of the investigation, political controversy aside, the minister and his cabinet chief risk being charged with failure to perform official duties, embarrassing the entire executive branch.
After his testimony, Birritteri instead "resigned" from his position as head of the DAG and returned to work at the Attorney General's Office of the Supreme Court. His place was taken by Antonia Giammaria, a Roman prosecutor who enjoys Bartolozzi's trust. Birritteri is now in contention to become the new Attorney General of the Supreme Court, a highly prestigious position for which there are several questions, including that of Pina Casella , who was already close to Luca Palamara for political reasons before the latter fell out of favor and was struck off the judiciary. The former head of the DAG is a highly respected magistrate of the highest caliber. It remains to be seen how the CSM will proceed following this affair. Returning to Almasri, the Attorney General's Office in Tripoli yesterday issued a formal summons against him in relation to the charges in the International Criminal Court 's arrest warrant. The charges include murder, rape, torture, inhumane treatment, arbitrary detention, and other crimes related to crimes against humanity. These are the same charges that Italy has not considered advancing in his arrest.
l'Unità
