Italian Mitrokhin Commission
Encyclopedia
The Mitrokhin Commission was a parliamentary commission set up in 2002 by the Italian Parliament, then led by Silvio Berlusconi
's right-wing coalition, the Casa delle Libertà
, and presided by senator Paolo Guzzanti
(Forza Italia
). Its aim was to investigate alleged KGB
ties to opposition figures in Italian politics
, basing itself on one hand on the controversial Mitrokhin Archive
, on the other hand on various others sources, including the consultant Mario Scaramella
, who rose to international prominence in 2006 in the midst of the Alexander Litvinenko
affair. Litvinenko was a former KGB agent poisoned in London in 2006.
The Mitrokhin Commission alleged, among others, that Romano Prodi
, former center-left Prime Minister of Italy
and President of the European Commission
from 1999 to 2004, was the "KGB's man in Italy." Mario Scaramella was arrested end of December 2006 and charged with calumny and illegal weapons' trade, while interceptions of phone calls between Scaramella and senator Guzzanti were published by the Italian press at the end of 2006, showing that they planned to discredit various figures of the opposition by claiming KGB ties.
The commission was shut down in March 2006 without any concrete evidence given to support the original allegations of KGB ties to Italian politicians.
In five years, the Commission heard 47 consultants, for a total cost of 1.9 million euros
Following various events, including the arrest in December 2006 of Mario Scaramella, a consultant of Paolo Guzzanti (paid 1.300 euros a month, not including additional work expenses), for defamation, as well as the April 2006 general election
won by Romano Prodi
's left-wing coalition, L'Unione
, the Italian parliament instituted a new commission to investigate the Mitrokhin Commission and allegations that it was manipulated for political purposes.
; the vicepresidents Andrea Papini and Giovanni Mongiello; the secretaries Giampaolo Zancan and Salvatore Meleleo; the senators Giulio Andreotti
, Guglielmo Castagnetti, Mario Cavallaro, Amedeo Ciccanti, Cinzia Dato, Luciano Falcier, Costantino Garraffa, Mario Gasbarri, Lauro Salvatore, Loris Giuseppe Maconi, Lucio Malan, Luigi Marino, Franco Mugnai, Gianni Nieddu, Lodovico Pace, Piergiorgio Stiffoni, Roberto Ulivi, Lodovico Pace, Piergiorgio Stiffoni, Roberto Ulivi; the deputies Ferdinando Adornato, Gabriele Albonetti, Maurizio Bertucci, Valter Bielli, Francesco Carboni, Fabrizio Cicchitto, Giuseppe Cossiga, Oliviero Diliberto, Lino Duilio, Giuseppe Fallica, Vincenzo Fragalà, Pierfrancesco Emilio Romano Gamba, Francesco Giordano, Giuseppe Lezza, Giuseppe Molinari, Erminio Angelo Quartiani, Enzo Raisi, Giacomo Stucchi.
, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio
, General Giuseppe Cucchi (current director of the CESIS
), Milan's judges Armando Spataro, and Guido Salvini
, both in charge of the Imam Rapito
case, as well as La Repubblica
reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D'Avanzo, who broke the Yellowcake forgery
scandal. Also known as the "Niger uranium forgeries", this latter affair refers to falsified
classified documents provided by the Italian SISMI
to US intelligence. These forgeries depicted an attempt by the regime of Iraq
's Saddam Hussein
to purchase yellowcake
uranium
from Niger
during the Iraq disarmament crisis
, and was one of the pretexts invoked by the Bush administration
to invade Iraq in 2003
.
's 1981 attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II
. He claimed in the draft of the report, without providing evidence to back his claim, that "leaders of the former Soviet Union were behind the assassination attempt", alleging that "the leadership of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate Pope John Paul" because of his support for Solidarity, the Polish trade-union, relaying "this decision to the military secret services" (and not the KGB). According to Frank Brodhead, however, the new conclusions brought by Paolo Guzzanti were based on the same "information" provided in the early 1980s by Michael Ledeen
, a US neo-conservative tied to the SISMI and Mehmet Ali Agca himself, which is "bogus at best and at worst deliberately misleading." The "Bulgarian connection" thesis was debunked by Francesco Pazienza
, a member of Propaganda Due
, cited in a 1987 article in The Nation
as well as by media analyst Edward S. Herman
in 1986: The Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection. Pazienza claimed that Michael Ledeen "was the person responsible for dreaming up the 'Bulgarian connection' behind the plot to kill the Pope." Ledeen recognized to the Vanity Fair
having been paid $10,000 by the SISMI in 1979 or 1980, allegedly on extradition matters with the US. Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs
, who had initially believed this conspiracy theory
, later wrote that "the Bulgarian connection was invented by Agca with the hope of winning his release from prison. … He was aided and abetted in this scheme by right-wing conspiracy theorists in the United States and William Casey's Central Intelligence Agency, which became a victim of its own disinformation campaign.""
Senator Guzzanti said that the commission had decided to re-open the report's chapter on the assassination attempt in 2005, after the Pope wrote about it in his last book, Memory and Identity: Conversations Between Millenniums. The Pope wrote that he was convinced the shooting was not Ağca's initiative and that "someone else masterminded it and someone else commissioned it" .
Guzzanti's claims in the draft report were based on recent computer analysis of photographs that purported to demonstrate Antonov's presence in St Peter's Square during the shooting and on information brought by the French anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière
, a controversial figure whose last feat was to indict Rwandese president Paul Kagame
, claiming he had deliberately provoked the 1994 Rwandan Genocide
against his own ethnic group in order to take the power. According to Le Figaro
, Bruguière, who is in close contacts as well with Moscow as with Washington, D.C., including the CIA and the FBI, has been accused by many of his colleagues of "privileging the raison d'état over law."
Both Russia and Bulgaria condemned the report. "For Bulgaria, this case closed with the court decision in Rome in March 1986", Foreign Ministry spokesman Dimitar Tsanchev said, while also recalling the Pope's comments during his May 2002 visit to Bulgaria.
This "Bulgarian connection" thesis, which claims that the Soviet Union was in fact behind the Pope's assassination attempt by the former Grey Wolves
member, Mehmet Ali Agca, had been denounced previously by Pope John Paul II during his travel to Bulgaria in May 2002. In Russia, Foreign Intelligence Service spokesman Boris Labusov called the accusation "absurd.".
, presumably for political purpose. Asked about targeted personae he said: "Without a doubt, the first name on the list was that of Prodi, especially during the period preceding the spring elections. [...] Prodi was a real obsession, in spite of the fact that nothing ever came out on your Prime Minister." In a rebuke to the original Mitrokhin commission's authenticity, Vasily Mitrokhin himself refused to meet the Commission's members before his death.
On December 1, 2006 several Italian newspapers published interceptions of telephone calls between Paolo Guzzanti and Mario Scaramella
, a consultant on the Mitrokhin Commission, who became involved in the events surrounding the death of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko
in Great Britain on 23 November 2006
In the interceptions, Guzzanti declared that the Mitrokhin Commission's unstated goal was to depict Romano Prodi
and Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio
, leader of the Federation of the Greens
and current Minister of Environment in Prodi's government, as "agents of the KGB", financed by Moscow in order to discredit him. In these interceptions, the two men also discussed plans to claim that Antonio Bassolino
, governor of the Campania
region, was linked to the Camorra
. According to the Corriere della Sera
, these interceptions demonstrated that Scaramella was in contact with Italian police agents, penitentiary police agents, and two CIA agents, one of them being Robert Seldon Lady
, former CIA station chief in Milan, indicted by prosecutor Armando Spataro for having coordinated the abduction of Abu Omar
in 2003 in Milan, a case of extraordinary rendition
which gave rise to the Imam Rapito affair
.
Scaramella, according to the interceptions, was to collect false witnesses among KGB refugees in Europe to support this aim.
He was arrested end of December 2006 on charges of calumny and illegal weapons' trade. The investigation showed that Scaramella received some of his "information" from Alexander Litvinenko. Scaramella was then an obscure figure, described as follows by the International Herald Tribune
:
His repeated offers to collaborate with the Italian secret services were all rejected in the 1990s by the Italian government. Nonetheless, from 2003 to 2006, he worked for the Mitrokhin Commission. When a left-wing member of the Commission questioned his creditals, he promptly remade one.
According to the investigations of Rome prosecutor Pietro Salvitti, who indicted Mario Scaramella, cited by La Repubblica, Nicolò Pollari
, head of SISMI indicted in the Imam Rapito affair, as well as SISMI n°2, Marco Mancini
, arrested in July 2006 for the same reason, were some of the informers, alongside Mario Scaramella, of senator Paolo Guzzanti. Beside targeting Romano Prodi and his staff, this "network", according to Pietro Salvitti's words, also aimed at defaming General Giuseppe Cucchi (current director of the CESIS
), Milan's judges Armando Spataro, in charge of the Imam Rapito case and Guido Salvini
, as well as La Repubblica reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D'Avanzo, who broke the Yellowcake forgery scandal as well as the SISMI-Telecom affair, in which Marco Mancini, n°2 of the SISMI already indicted in the Imam Rapito affair, was arrested for end of 2006. The investigation also showed a connection between Scaramella and the CIA, in particular through Filippo Marino, one of Scaramella's closest partners since the 1990s and co-founder of the Environmental Crime Prevention Program
(ECPP), described as an empty shell according to the International Herald Tribune. Marino, who now lived in the U.S., has acknowledged in an interview an association with former and active CIA officers, including Robert Lady, former CIA station chief in Milan above-mentioned.
. Following the general election
and the nomination of Romano Prodi as head of the new government, a parliamentary commission was instituted to investigate about this controversial "Mitrokhin Commission".
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...
's right-wing coalition, the Casa delle Libertà
House of Freedoms
The House of Freedoms , was a major Italian centre-right political and electoral alliance led by Silvio Berlusconi. It was initially composed of several political parties:*Forza Italia *National Alliance...
, and presided by senator Paolo Guzzanti
Paolo Guzzanti
Paolo Guzzanti is an Italian journalist and politician. He was previously a member of the Italian Socialist Party.-Biography:Born in Rome, he is the nephew of Elio Guzzanti and father to actors Corrado, Sabina and Caterina....
(Forza Italia
Forza Italia
Forza Italia was a liberal-conservative, Christian democratic, and liberal political party in Italy, with a large social democratic minority, that was led by Silvio Berlusconi, four times Prime Minister of Italy....
). Its aim was to investigate alleged KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
ties to opposition figures in Italian politics
Politics of Italy
The politics of Italy is conducted through a parliamentary, democratic republic with a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised collectively by the Council of Ministers, which is led by the President of the Council of Ministers, referred to as "Presidente del Consiglio" in Italian...
, basing itself on one hand on the controversial Mitrokhin Archive
Mitrokhin Archive
The Mitrokhin Archive is a collection of notes made secretly by KGB Major Vasili Mitrokhin during his thirty years as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the First Chief Directorate...
, on the other hand on various others sources, including the consultant Mario Scaramella
Mario Scaramella
Mario Scaramella is an Italian lawyer, self-styled security consultant and nuclear waste expert who came to international prominence in 2006 in connection with the poisoning of the ex-FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko...
, who rose to international prominence in 2006 in the midst of the Alexander Litvinenko
Alexander Litvinenko
Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko was an officer who served in the Soviet KGB and its Russian successor, the Federal Security Service ....
affair. Litvinenko was a former KGB agent poisoned in London in 2006.
The Mitrokhin Commission alleged, among others, that Romano Prodi
Romano Prodi
Romano Prodi is an Italian politician and statesman. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008...
, former center-left Prime Minister of Italy
Prime minister of Italy
The Prime Minister of Italy is the head of government of the Italian Republic...
and President of the European Commission
President of the European Commission
The President of the European Commission is the head of the European Commission ― the executive branch of the :European Union ― the most powerful officeholder in the EU. The President is responsible for allocating portfolios to members of the Commission and can reshuffle or dismiss them if needed...
from 1999 to 2004, was the "KGB's man in Italy." Mario Scaramella was arrested end of December 2006 and charged with calumny and illegal weapons' trade, while interceptions of phone calls between Scaramella and senator Guzzanti were published by the Italian press at the end of 2006, showing that they planned to discredit various figures of the opposition by claiming KGB ties.
The commission was shut down in March 2006 without any concrete evidence given to support the original allegations of KGB ties to Italian politicians.
In five years, the Commission heard 47 consultants, for a total cost of 1.9 million euros
Following various events, including the arrest in December 2006 of Mario Scaramella, a consultant of Paolo Guzzanti (paid 1.300 euros a month, not including additional work expenses), for defamation, as well as the April 2006 general election
Italian general election, 2006
In the Italian general election, 2006 for the renewal of the two Chambers of the Parliament of Italy held on April 9 and April 10, 2006 the incumbent prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the center-right House of Freedoms, was narrowly defeated by Romano Prodi, leader of the center-left The...
won by Romano Prodi
Romano Prodi
Romano Prodi is an Italian politician and statesman. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008...
's left-wing coalition, L'Unione
The Union (political coalition)
The Union was an centre-left coalition of political parties in Italy. It was led by Romano Prodi, Prime Minister of Italy from April 2006 to April 2008, and former President of the European Commission.-Parties:...
, the Italian parliament instituted a new commission to investigate the Mitrokhin Commission and allegations that it was manipulated for political purposes.
Members of the commission
The commission was composed of twenty senators and twenty deputies. They were: the president Paolo GuzzantiPaolo Guzzanti
Paolo Guzzanti is an Italian journalist and politician. He was previously a member of the Italian Socialist Party.-Biography:Born in Rome, he is the nephew of Elio Guzzanti and father to actors Corrado, Sabina and Caterina....
; the vicepresidents Andrea Papini and Giovanni Mongiello; the secretaries Giampaolo Zancan and Salvatore Meleleo; the senators Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti is an Italian politician of the now dissolved centrist Christian Democracy party. He served as the 42nd Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and from 1989 to 1992. He also served as Minister of the Interior , Defense Minister and Foreign Minister and he...
, Guglielmo Castagnetti, Mario Cavallaro, Amedeo Ciccanti, Cinzia Dato, Luciano Falcier, Costantino Garraffa, Mario Gasbarri, Lauro Salvatore, Loris Giuseppe Maconi, Lucio Malan, Luigi Marino, Franco Mugnai, Gianni Nieddu, Lodovico Pace, Piergiorgio Stiffoni, Roberto Ulivi, Lodovico Pace, Piergiorgio Stiffoni, Roberto Ulivi; the deputies Ferdinando Adornato, Gabriele Albonetti, Maurizio Bertucci, Valter Bielli, Francesco Carboni, Fabrizio Cicchitto, Giuseppe Cossiga, Oliviero Diliberto, Lino Duilio, Giuseppe Fallica, Vincenzo Fragalà, Pierfrancesco Emilio Romano Gamba, Francesco Giordano, Giuseppe Lezza, Giuseppe Molinari, Erminio Angelo Quartiani, Enzo Raisi, Giacomo Stucchi.
Allegations
Allegations of KGB ties, which were denied and judged as defamation in justice, included former (and current) premier Romano Prodi, labelled as the "KGB's man in Italy", his staff, Massimo D'AlemaMassimo D'Alema
Massimo D'Alema is an Italian politician. He is also a journalist and a former national secretary of the Democratic Party of the Left...
, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio
Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio
Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio , is an Italian politician. He served as Minister of Environment in the second cabinet of Romano Prodi between 2006 and 2008....
, General Giuseppe Cucchi (current director of the CESIS
CESIS
Comitato Esecutivo per i Servizi di Informazione e Sicurezza was an Italian government committee whose mission was the coordination of all the intelligence sector, and specifically between the two civilian and military intelligence agencies , with the aim to report all the relevant information...
), Milan's judges Armando Spataro, and Guido Salvini
Guido Salvini
Guido Salvini is an Italian judge, based in Milan. He issued European arrest warrants in 2005 against approximatively 20 CIA agents accused of having taken part in the abduction of Abu Omar, the Egyptian cleric in Milan in 2003. The case is known in Italy as the Imam Rapito affair...
, both in charge of the Imam Rapito
Imam Rapito affair
The Abu Omar Case refers to the abduction and transfer to Egypt of the Imam of Milan Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar...
case, as well as La Repubblica
La Repubblica
la Repubblica is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. Founded in 1976 in Rome by the journalist Eugenio Scalfari, as of 2008 is the second largest circulation newspaper, behind the Corriere della Sera.-Foundation:...
reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D'Avanzo, who broke the Yellowcake forgery
Yellowcake forgery
The Niger uranium forgeries are forged documents initially revealed by Italian Military intelligence. These documents seem to depict an attempt made by Saddam Hussein in Iraq to purchase yellowcake uranium powder from Niger during the Iraq disarmament crisis....
scandal. Also known as the "Niger uranium forgeries", this latter affair refers to falsified
Forgery
Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or...
classified documents provided by the Italian SISMI
SISMI
Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare was the military intelligence agency of Italy from 1977-2007....
to US intelligence. These forgeries depicted an attempt by the regime of Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
's Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
to purchase yellowcake
Yellowcake
Yellowcake is a kind of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. Yellowcake concentrates are prepared by various extraction and refining methods, depending on the types of ores...
uranium
Uranium
Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...
from Niger
Niger
Niger , officially named the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...
during the Iraq disarmament crisis
Iraq disarmament crisis
The issue of Iraq's disarmament reached a crisis in 2002-2003, when U.S. President George W. Bush demanded a complete end to what he alleged was Iraqi production of weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq comply with UN Resolutions requiring UN weapons inspectors unfettered access to areas those...
, and was one of the pretexts invoked by the Bush administration
George W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
to invade Iraq in 2003
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
.
The "Bulgarian connection" claim
Senator Guzzanti also revived the old "Bulgarian connection" thesis concerning Mehmet Ali AgcaMehmet Ali Agca
Mehmet Ali Ağca is a Turkish assassin who murdered left-wing journalist Abdi İpekçi on February 1, 1979 and later shot and wounded Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981, after escaping from a Turkish prison. After serving 19 years of imprisonment in Italy, he was deported to Turkey, where he served a...
's 1981 attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
. He claimed in the draft of the report, without providing evidence to back his claim, that "leaders of the former Soviet Union were behind the assassination attempt", alleging that "the leadership of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate Pope John Paul" because of his support for Solidarity, the Polish trade-union, relaying "this decision to the military secret services" (and not the KGB). According to Frank Brodhead, however, the new conclusions brought by Paolo Guzzanti were based on the same "information" provided in the early 1980s by Michael Ledeen
Michael Ledeen
Michael Arthur Ledeen is an American specialist on foreign policy. His research areas have included state sponsors of terrorism, Iran, the Middle East, Europe , U.S.-China relations, intelligence, and Africa and is a leading neoconservative...
, a US neo-conservative tied to the SISMI and Mehmet Ali Agca himself, which is "bogus at best and at worst deliberately misleading." The "Bulgarian connection" thesis was debunked by Francesco Pazienza
Francesco Pazienza
Francesco Pazienza is an Italian businessman, and former officer of the Italian military intelligence agency, SISMI. As of April 2007, he has been paroled to the community of Lerici, after serving many years in prison, including a 1993 conviction due to his role in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal,...
, a member of Propaganda Due
Propaganda Due
Propaganda Due , or P2, was a Masonic lodge operating under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient of Italy from 1945 to 1976 , and a pseudo-Masonic or "black" or "covert" lodge operating illegally from 1976 to...
, cited in a 1987 article in The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
as well as by media analyst Edward S. Herman
Edward S. Herman
Edward S. Herman is an American economist and media analyst with a specialty in corporate and regulatory issues as well as political economy and the media. He is Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He also teaches at Annenberg School for...
in 1986: The Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection. Pazienza claimed that Michael Ledeen "was the person responsible for dreaming up the 'Bulgarian connection' behind the plot to kill the Pope." Ledeen recognized to the Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
having been paid $10,000 by the SISMI in 1979 or 1980, allegedly on extradition matters with the US. Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs
Michael Dobbs
Michael Dobbs, Baron Dobbs is a British Conservative politician and best-selling author.-Background:Michael Dobbs was born on 14 November 1948 in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, the son of nurseryman Eric and Eileen Dobbs. He was educated at Hertford Grammar School and Christ Church, Oxford University....
, who had initially believed this conspiracy theory
Conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...
, later wrote that "the Bulgarian connection was invented by Agca with the hope of winning his release from prison. … He was aided and abetted in this scheme by right-wing conspiracy theorists in the United States and William Casey's Central Intelligence Agency, which became a victim of its own disinformation campaign.""
Senator Guzzanti said that the commission had decided to re-open the report's chapter on the assassination attempt in 2005, after the Pope wrote about it in his last book, Memory and Identity: Conversations Between Millenniums. The Pope wrote that he was convinced the shooting was not Ağca's initiative and that "someone else masterminded it and someone else commissioned it" .
Guzzanti's claims in the draft report were based on recent computer analysis of photographs that purported to demonstrate Antonov's presence in St Peter's Square during the shooting and on information brought by the French anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière
Jean-Louis Bruguière
Jean-Louis Bruguière was the leading French investigating magistrate in charge of counter-terrorism affairs. He was appointed in 2004 vice-president of the Paris Court of Serious Claims . He has garnered controversy for various acts, including the indictment of Rwandan president Paul Kagame for the...
, a controversial figure whose last feat was to indict Rwandese president Paul Kagame
Paul Kagame
Paul Kagame is the sixth and current President of the Republic of Rwanda. He rose to prominence as the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front , whose victory over the incumbent government in July 1994 effectively ended the Rwandan genocide...
, claiming he had deliberately provoked the 1994 Rwandan Genocide
Rwandan Genocide
The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass murder of an estimated 800,000 people in the small East African nation of Rwanda. Over the course of approximately 100 days through mid-July, over 500,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate...
against his own ethnic group in order to take the power. According to Le Figaro
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
, Bruguière, who is in close contacts as well with Moscow as with Washington, D.C., including the CIA and the FBI, has been accused by many of his colleagues of "privileging the raison d'état over law."
Both Russia and Bulgaria condemned the report. "For Bulgaria, this case closed with the court decision in Rome in March 1986", Foreign Ministry spokesman Dimitar Tsanchev said, while also recalling the Pope's comments during his May 2002 visit to Bulgaria.
This "Bulgarian connection" thesis, which claims that the Soviet Union was in fact behind the Pope's assassination attempt by the former Grey Wolves
Grey Wolves
The Idealist Youth , commonly known as Grey Wolves , is an ultra-nationalist neo-fascist youth organization. It is accused of terrorism. According to Turkish authorities, the organization carried out 694 murders between 1974–1980.-Name:...
member, Mehmet Ali Agca, had been denounced previously by Pope John Paul II during his travel to Bulgaria in May 2002. In Russia, Foreign Intelligence Service spokesman Boris Labusov called the accusation "absurd.".
Analysis of the allegations
In an interview published in La Repubblica in November 2006, former KGB agent Yevgeny Limarev told how the "working group" of the commission purpose was to find connections between Italian political left exponents and KGB or FSBFSB (Russia)
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation is the main domestic security agency of the Russian Federation and the main successor agency of the Soviet Committee of State Security . Its main responsibilities are counter-intelligence, internal and border security, counter-terrorism, and...
, presumably for political purpose. Asked about targeted personae he said: "Without a doubt, the first name on the list was that of Prodi, especially during the period preceding the spring elections. [...] Prodi was a real obsession, in spite of the fact that nothing ever came out on your Prime Minister." In a rebuke to the original Mitrokhin commission's authenticity, Vasily Mitrokhin himself refused to meet the Commission's members before his death.
On December 1, 2006 several Italian newspapers published interceptions of telephone calls between Paolo Guzzanti and Mario Scaramella
Mario Scaramella
Mario Scaramella is an Italian lawyer, self-styled security consultant and nuclear waste expert who came to international prominence in 2006 in connection with the poisoning of the ex-FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko...
, a consultant on the Mitrokhin Commission, who became involved in the events surrounding the death of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko
Alexander Litvinenko
Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko was an officer who served in the Soviet KGB and its Russian successor, the Federal Security Service ....
in Great Britain on 23 November 2006
In the interceptions, Guzzanti declared that the Mitrokhin Commission's unstated goal was to depict Romano Prodi
Romano Prodi
Romano Prodi is an Italian politician and statesman. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008...
and Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio
Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio
Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio , is an Italian politician. He served as Minister of Environment in the second cabinet of Romano Prodi between 2006 and 2008....
, leader of the Federation of the Greens
Federation of the Greens
The Federation of the Greens is a green political party in Italy, which includes also a large eco-socialist faction. Since 2009 the party leader is Angelo Bonelli.-Early years:...
and current Minister of Environment in Prodi's government, as "agents of the KGB", financed by Moscow in order to discredit him. In these interceptions, the two men also discussed plans to claim that Antonio Bassolino
Antonio Bassolino
Antonio Bassolino, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian politician. He has been President of the Campania region from 2000 to 2010.-Biography:Bassolino was born in Afragola, Campania...
, governor of the Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
region, was linked to the Camorra
Camorra
The Camorra is a Mafia-type criminal organization, or secret society, originating in the region of Campania and its capital Naples in Italy. It is one of the oldest and largest criminal organizations in Italy, dating to the 18th century.-Background:...
. According to the Corriere della Sera
Corriere della Sera
The Corriere della Sera is an Italian daily newspaper, published in Milan.It is among the oldest and most reputable Italian newspapers. Its main rivals are Rome's La Repubblica and Turin's La Stampa.- History :...
, these interceptions demonstrated that Scaramella was in contact with Italian police agents, penitentiary police agents, and two CIA agents, one of them being Robert Seldon Lady
Robert Seldon Lady
Robert Seldon Lady is a convicted kidnapper and a noted member of the U.S...
, former CIA station chief in Milan, indicted by prosecutor Armando Spataro for having coordinated the abduction of Abu Omar
Abu Omar
Abu Omar may refer to:*Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi , also known as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, Iraqi insurgent*Abu Omar al-Kurdi, real name Sami Muhammad Ali Said al-Jaaf, bomb maker who worked in Iraq...
in 2003 in Milan, a case of extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition is the abduction and illegal transfer of a person from one nation to another. "Torture by proxy" is used by some critics to describe situations in which the United States and the United Kingdom have transferred suspected terrorists to other countries in order to torture the...
which gave rise to the Imam Rapito affair
Imam Rapito affair
The Abu Omar Case refers to the abduction and transfer to Egypt of the Imam of Milan Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar...
.
Scaramella, according to the interceptions, was to collect false witnesses among KGB refugees in Europe to support this aim.
He was arrested end of December 2006 on charges of calumny and illegal weapons' trade. The investigation showed that Scaramella received some of his "information" from Alexander Litvinenko. Scaramella was then an obscure figure, described as follows by the International Herald Tribune
International Herald Tribune
The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...
:
"a slew of media reports about him and his career here — which included trying to prove that some top Italian center-left politicians, including Prime Minister Romano Prodi, are Russian spies — have invariably included unflattering adjectives. They include: "incurable liar", "wannabe 007", "braggart", "bumbler" and "swindler" — not to mention "fool" and "mental case."
His repeated offers to collaborate with the Italian secret services were all rejected in the 1990s by the Italian government. Nonetheless, from 2003 to 2006, he worked for the Mitrokhin Commission. When a left-wing member of the Commission questioned his creditals, he promptly remade one.
According to the investigations of Rome prosecutor Pietro Salvitti, who indicted Mario Scaramella, cited by La Repubblica, Nicolò Pollari
Nicolò Pollari
Nicolò Pollari is a general of the Italian Guardia di Finanza, who was the former head of Italy's national military intelligence agency, or SISMI, until his resignation on 20 November 2006.He was born in Caltanissetta, Sicily....
, head of SISMI indicted in the Imam Rapito affair, as well as SISMI n°2, Marco Mancini
Marco Mancini
Marco Mancini was the second-highest ranking officer of Sismi, the military intelligence agency of Italy until his 5 July 2006 arrest for his participation in the kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr...
, arrested in July 2006 for the same reason, were some of the informers, alongside Mario Scaramella, of senator Paolo Guzzanti. Beside targeting Romano Prodi and his staff, this "network", according to Pietro Salvitti's words, also aimed at defaming General Giuseppe Cucchi (current director of the CESIS
CESIS
Comitato Esecutivo per i Servizi di Informazione e Sicurezza was an Italian government committee whose mission was the coordination of all the intelligence sector, and specifically between the two civilian and military intelligence agencies , with the aim to report all the relevant information...
), Milan's judges Armando Spataro, in charge of the Imam Rapito case and Guido Salvini
Guido Salvini
Guido Salvini is an Italian judge, based in Milan. He issued European arrest warrants in 2005 against approximatively 20 CIA agents accused of having taken part in the abduction of Abu Omar, the Egyptian cleric in Milan in 2003. The case is known in Italy as the Imam Rapito affair...
, as well as La Repubblica reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D'Avanzo, who broke the Yellowcake forgery scandal as well as the SISMI-Telecom affair, in which Marco Mancini, n°2 of the SISMI already indicted in the Imam Rapito affair, was arrested for end of 2006. The investigation also showed a connection between Scaramella and the CIA, in particular through Filippo Marino, one of Scaramella's closest partners since the 1990s and co-founder of the Environmental Crime Prevention Program
Environmental Crime Prevention Program
The Environmental Crime Prevention Program was an organization which tracked dumped nuclear waste, including Soviet nuclear missiles left over from the Cold War. It was founded by Italian lawyer and self-styled security consultant Mario Scaramella along with his partner Filippo Marino in Naples,...
(ECPP), described as an empty shell according to the International Herald Tribune. Marino, who now lived in the U.S., has acknowledged in an interview an association with former and active CIA officers, including Robert Lady, former CIA station chief in Milan above-mentioned.
Closure of the Commission and creation of a new commission
The Mitrokhin Commission was shut down in March 2006 without any concrete result provided, and not one political figure was exposed by the allegations, despite months of press speculation alimented by Berlusconi family newspaper Il GiornaleIl Giornale
il Giornale is an Italian daily newspaper published in Milan, Italy.-History:The newspaper was planned in 1972 by the journalist Indro Montanelli, together with the colleague Enzo Bettiza, after some disagreements with the new pro-left editorial line adopted by the newspaper Corriere della Sera,...
. Following the general election
Italian general election, 2006
In the Italian general election, 2006 for the renewal of the two Chambers of the Parliament of Italy held on April 9 and April 10, 2006 the incumbent prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the center-right House of Freedoms, was narrowly defeated by Romano Prodi, leader of the center-left The...
and the nomination of Romano Prodi as head of the new government, a parliamentary commission was instituted to investigate about this controversial "Mitrokhin Commission".
See also
- Mitrokhin ArchiveMitrokhin ArchiveThe Mitrokhin Archive is a collection of notes made secretly by KGB Major Vasili Mitrokhin during his thirty years as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the First Chief Directorate...
- Mario ScaramellaMario ScaramellaMario Scaramella is an Italian lawyer, self-styled security consultant and nuclear waste expert who came to international prominence in 2006 in connection with the poisoning of the ex-FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko...
- Silvio BerlusconiSilvio BerlusconiSilvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...
and Romano ProdiRomano ProdiRomano Prodi is an Italian politician and statesman. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008... - Mehmet Ali AgcaMehmet Ali AgcaMehmet Ali Ağca is a Turkish assassin who murdered left-wing journalist Abdi İpekçi on February 1, 1979 and later shot and wounded Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981, after escaping from a Turkish prison. After serving 19 years of imprisonment in Italy, he was deported to Turkey, where he served a...
- Yellowcake forgery scandal
- Imam Rapito affairImam Rapito affairThe Abu Omar Case refers to the abduction and transfer to Egypt of the Imam of Milan Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar...