Mario Scaramella
Encyclopedia
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
. He served as an investigator and adviser to the controversial Mitrokhin Commission
set up by Silvio Berlusconi
's Forza Italia
party in order to investigate supposed links between Berlusconi's political rivals, including his rival for the premiership (later Prime Minister
) Romano Prodi
and the KGB
. Scaramella is alleged to have collaborated with the president of the commission Paolo Guzzanti
in garnering false evidence to link Prodi with the KGB. Prodi has said he intends to sue over the allegations.
Scaramella is currently under investigation by the Italian justice department for calumny and illegal weapons trade,
accusations which Scaramella has replied to in an interview in L'Espresso
.
While working for the Mitrokhin Commission, Scaramella claimed a Ukrainian ex-KGB agent living in Naples
, Alexander Talik, conspired with three other Ukrainians to assassinate him and Senator Guzzanti. The Ukrainians were arrested, but Talik claimed that Scaramella had invented the story of the assassination attempt, which brought the calumny charge on him. Talik also claimed that rocket propelled grenade
s sent to him in Italy had in fact been sent by Scaramella himself.
and still lives in the city. In March 1989, at the age of nineteen, he founded an "environmental police force" with eight young associates. He managed to obtain a gun license with a written recommendation from a family friend who worked in the National Antimafia Commission
. Afterwards, with a fishing/hunting guard ID, Scaramella introduced himself as an "inspector" to two assistant district attorney
s in a small municipality
outside Naples, asking their support for his policing activities. He was assigned a police squad and started seizing properties for a variety of environmental crime
s, ranging from sealing public bathrooms in Capri
to seizing a clandestine horse track controlled by a local Mafia
boss. However, in June 1991, an official grew suspicious after noticing that Scaramella never signed any paperwork, and he was indicted and found guilty of impersonating a police officer. He was ordered to pay a fine, but the verdict was reversed on appeal. The appeals court
found that the term he had used, "inspector", did not necessarily indicate a police inspector
.
of environmental law
at the Externado University
and the University of Nuestra Señora del Rosario
in Bogotá
, Colombia
. He also said to have held a post in environmental crime
at the University of Naples. The Evening Standard
, who interviewed Scaramella, however say they have not been able to confirm any part of his academic career. The University of Naples has claimed never to have heard of him. According to a former member of the controversial Mitrokhin Commission to which Scaramella was a consultant (2002–2006), he provided different university references when requested on different occasions.
Until 2006, Scaramella was best known for a memo claiming that Soviet submarine K-8
left 20 nuclear mines in the Bay of Naples in 1970. He claimed that he had long been involved in investigating the smuggling of radioactive material by the KGB and its successors.
based organization Environmental Crime Prevention Program
(ECPP), another empty shell which directly passed to have second plenary conference in 1997 in order to better convince of its legitimacy as an intergovernmental organization. He then managed to convince NATO to fund him, opening an office in Vilnius
, Lithuania
, before managing to acquire a first temporary, then permanent observatory status at the London Convention
, an international group linked to the International Maritime Organization
. According to the International Herald Tribune
, this "phony organization" then signed on 12 October 2000, a Memorandum of Understanding
for cooperation with the Secretariat of the Basel Convention on the Environment, which is part of the United Nations Environment Programme
. One of his few public appearances was in 2002 at a security related conference, giving a lecture on "space anti-terror technologies". ECPP's observership's status to the London Convention/Protocol meetings was withdrawn in July 2007.
agent Alexander Litvinenko
for lunch at Itsu
, a sushi restaurant in Piccadilly
, London. Scaramella has stated he ate nothing and drank only water at the restaurant. On 1 December 2006 he was taken to University College Hospital
, and it was confirmed that he has been exposed to Polonium-210, the substance which was thought to have been eaten by Alexander Litvinenko at the aforementioned lunch, and which killed him. Although Scaramella initially denied having the substance in his body, his lawyer made a statement on the same day saying that they would make no comment until the results of the tests were finalised. A room at Ashdown Park Hotel, in Sussex
, where Scaramella is thought to have stayed whilst in the U.K. has been sealed off due to possible contamination.
Some news outlets have speculated that Scaramella may have been Litvinenko's assassin.
On 3 December Italian Senator Paolo Guzzanti
was quoted after speaking with Scaramella by phone, saying health officials had told Scaramella the dose of polonium he had received is usually fatal
. Guzzanti told Reuters
:
Latest news inform that he was only exposed to minute traces of polonium.
Litvinenko's brother Maxim, who lives in Italy, told that Scaramella wanted to use his brother as a source for his research into Italian politicians and their alleged links to the Russian intelligence services. According to Maxim, one of the things Alexander Litvinenko did for Scaramella was sit down in front of a video camera in early 2006 in Rome. Litvinenko said that the video should not be leaked to the press, and warned that he personally knew nothing about Prodi. However he went on saying, in front of camera, that former FSB deputy chief Anatoly Trofimov
warned him in 2000 that he should not move to Italy because Prodi was "one of their men". Maxim said he was paid €200 in cash to translate on the day Scaramella recorded the video. Scaramella paid Alexander Litvinenko €500-600 to cover travel expenses.
where he was immediately arrested by DIGOS
, a division of the Italian national police
. He is charged with calumny, gunrunning
, and violating state secret
s. Scaramella was accused by Pietro Saviotti, a Rome prosecutor, of being involved in shipments of arms intended for an attempt on his own life and that of Senator Guzzanti. The case concerns on Scaramella's accounts to police of a plot against his life by the ex-Ukrainian agent Alexander Talik. Prosecutors suspect Scaramella may have made this false flag
plot up to pressure Litvinenko to give him information he wanted, or to make himself seem more credible as a parliamentary consultant. According to court documents, Talik said that Scaramella once asked him to sign a letter making false accusations against an unidentified Russian. The private meeting took place after Scaramella had told police Talik was trying to kill him. Talik told police:
A judge denied Scaramella bail, citing concerns that he might flee. In April 2007 he was transferred to a hospital and later placed under house arrest
activity in Italy. Several Italian newspapers have reported interceptions of telephone calls between the president of the commission, Paolo Guzzanti
, a member of ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi
's Forza Italia
party, and Mario Scaramella (on 30 November 2006 in Corriere della Sera
and on 1 December 2006 in L'Unità
). In the interceptions, Guzzanti declared that the Mitrokhin Commission's unstated goal was to depict Romano Prodi
as tied to the KGB, and financed by Moscow
in order to discredit him. Scaramella, according to the interceptions, was to collect false witnesses among KGB refugees in Europe to support this aim. The Mitrokhin Commission was shut down in 2006 without any concrete result provided, a new parliamentary commission instituted to investigate about it.
According to prosecutor Pietro Salvitti, cited by La Repubblica
and who has indicted Scaramella, 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. 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 ECPP
, who lives today in the US. Marino has acknowledged in an interview an association with former and active CIA officers, including Lou Palombo, who worked 22 years for Langley
's agency, and Robert Lady, former CIA station chief in Milan, indicted by prosecutor Armando Spataro for having coordinated the abduction of Abu Omar
, the Imam Rapito
. Slate Magazine reported that Scarmella stated that he was recruited by the CIA.http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2006/12/the_secret_life_of_mario_scaramella.html Russian sources have stated that he was working to discredit the Russians and may have been the one who actually poisoned Litvinenko http://www.eurotrib.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2006/11/19/20439/209. Scarmella also wanted to discredit Italian Prime Minister Prodi by accusing him of being a KGB agent because of Prodi's criticism of US foreign policy in Iraq and elsewhere.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
, self-styled security
Security
Security is the degree of protection against danger, damage, loss, and crime. Security as a form of protection are structures and processes that provide or improve security as a condition. The Institute for Security and Open Methodologies in the OSSTMM 3 defines security as "a form of protection...
consultant
Consultant
A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice in a particular area such as management, accountancy, the environment, entertainment, technology, law , human resources, marketing, emergency management, food production, medicine, finance, life management, economics, public...
and nuclear waste expert who came to international prominence in 2006 in connection with the poisoning of the ex-FSB 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 ....
. He served as an investigator and adviser to the controversial Mitrokhin Commission
Italian Mitrokhin Commission
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...
set up by Silvio Berlusconi
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 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....
party in order to investigate supposed links between Berlusconi's political rivals, including his rival for the premiership (later Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
) 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 the 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...
. Scaramella is alleged to have collaborated with the president of the commission 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....
in garnering false evidence to link Prodi with the KGB. Prodi has said he intends to sue over the allegations.
Scaramella is currently under investigation by the Italian justice department for calumny and illegal weapons trade,
accusations which Scaramella has replied to in an interview in L'Espresso
L'Espresso
l'Espresso is an Italian newsmagazine. It is one of the two most prominent Italian weeklies, the other being Panorama. Since the latter has been acquired by right-wing tycoon and politician Silvio Berlusconi, l'Espresso enjoys the reputation of being the main politically independent newsmagazine...
.
While working for the Mitrokhin Commission, Scaramella claimed a Ukrainian ex-KGB agent living in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, Alexander Talik, conspired with three other Ukrainians to assassinate him and Senator Guzzanti. The Ukrainians were arrested, but Talik claimed that Scaramella had invented the story of the assassination attempt, which brought the calumny charge on him. Talik also claimed that rocket propelled grenade
Rocket propelled grenade
A rocket-propelled grenade is a shoulder-fired, anti-tank weapon system which fires rockets equipped with an explosive warhead. These warheads are affixed to a rocket motor and stabilized in flight with fins. Some types of RPG are reloadable while others are single-use. RPGs, with the exception of...
s sent to him in Italy had in fact been sent by Scaramella himself.
Career
Scaramella was born in NaplesNaples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
and still lives in the city. In March 1989, at the age of nineteen, he founded an "environmental police force" with eight young associates. He managed to obtain a gun license with a written recommendation from a family friend who worked in the National Antimafia Commission
Antimafia Commission
The Italian Antimafia Commission is a bicameral commission of the Italian Parliament, composed of members from the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate . The Antimafia Commission is a commission of inquiry into, initially, the “phenomenon of the Mafia”...
. Afterwards, with a fishing/hunting guard ID, Scaramella introduced himself as an "inspector" to two assistant district attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
s in a small municipality
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...
outside Naples, asking their support for his policing activities. He was assigned a police squad and started seizing properties for a variety of environmental crime
Environmental crime
Environmental crime can be broadly defined as illegal acts, which directly harmthe environment. International bodies such as the G8, Interpol, EU, UN Environment Programme and the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute have recognised the following environmental crimes:* Illegal...
s, ranging from sealing public bathrooms in Capri
Capri
Capri is an Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region of Southern Italy...
to seizing a clandestine horse track controlled by a local Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
boss. However, in June 1991, an official grew suspicious after noticing that Scaramella never signed any paperwork, and he was indicted and found guilty of impersonating a police officer. He was ordered to pay a fine, but the verdict was reversed on appeal. The appeals court
Appeal
An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....
found that the term he had used, "inspector", did not necessarily indicate a police inspector
Inspector
Inspector is both a police rank and an administrative position, both used in a number of contexts. However, it is not an equivalent rank in each police force.- Australia :...
.
Academic background
According to his own resume, between 1996 and 2000 he served as a professorProfessor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of environmental law
Environmental law
Environmental law is a complex and interlocking body of treaties, conventions, statutes, regulations, and common law that operates to regulate the interaction of humanity and the natural environment, toward the purpose of reducing the impacts of human activity...
at the Externado University
Universidad Externado de Colombia
The Universidad Externado de Colombia in Bogotá, Colombia, is a private university which grants 4 and 5 year primary and professional degrees as well as advanced 2-year Magister degrees. Instruction is primarily in Spanish. The dean is Dr...
and the University of Nuestra Señora del Rosario
Our Lady of the Rosary University
The Universidad del Rosario is a university originally founded on Roman Catholic principles, in 1653 by Fray Cristobal de Torres. Located in Bogotá, Colombia, due to its important place in Colombian history, it is known as "The Cradle of the Republic". It had also a primary and secundary school...
in Bogotá
Bogotá
Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...
, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
. He also said to have held a post in environmental crime
Environmental crime
Environmental crime can be broadly defined as illegal acts, which directly harmthe environment. International bodies such as the G8, Interpol, EU, UN Environment Programme and the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute have recognised the following environmental crimes:* Illegal...
at the University of Naples. The Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
, who interviewed Scaramella, however say they have not been able to confirm any part of his academic career. The University of Naples has claimed never to have heard of him. According to a former member of the controversial Mitrokhin Commission to which Scaramella was a consultant (2002–2006), he provided different university references when requested on different occasions.
Until 2006, Scaramella was best known for a memo claiming that Soviet submarine K-8
Soviet submarine K-8
K-8 was a November class submarine of the Soviet Northern Fleet that sank in the Bay of Biscay with its nuclear weapons on board on April 12, 1970...
left 20 nuclear mines in the Bay of Naples in 1970. He claimed that he had long been involved in investigating the smuggling of radioactive material by the KGB and its successors.
The Environmental Crime Prevention Program
Between 2000 and 2002 he was secretary general of the NaplesNaples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
based organization 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), another empty shell which directly passed to have second plenary conference in 1997 in order to better convince of its legitimacy as an intergovernmental organization. He then managed to convince NATO to fund him, opening an office in Vilnius
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, before managing to acquire a first temporary, then permanent observatory status at the London Convention
Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter
The Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter 1972, commonly called the "London Convention" or "LC '72555" and also barbie abbreviated as Marine Dumping, is an agreement to control pollution of the sea by dumping and to encourage regional agreements...
, an international group linked to the International Maritime Organization
International Maritime Organization
The International Maritime Organization , formerly known as the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization , was established in Geneva in 1948, and came into force ten years later, meeting for the first time in 1959...
. According to 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...
, this "phony organization" then signed on 12 October 2000, a Memorandum of Understanding
Memorandum of understanding
A memorandum of understanding is a document describing a bilateral or multilateral agreement between parties. It expresses a convergence of will between the parties, indicating an intended common line of action. It is often used in cases where parties either do not imply a legal commitment or in...
for cooperation with the Secretariat of the Basel Convention on the Environment, which is part of the United Nations Environment Programme
United Nations Environment Programme
The United Nations Environment Programme coordinates United Nations environmental activities, assisting developing countries in implementing environmentally sound policies and practices. It was founded as a result of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in June 1972 and has its...
. One of his few public appearances was in 2002 at a security related conference, giving a lecture on "space anti-terror technologies". ECPP's observership's status to the London Convention/Protocol meetings was withdrawn in July 2007.
Poisoning
On 1 November 2006 Scaramella met the ex-Russian 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...
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 ....
for lunch at Itsu
Itsu
Itsu Ltd, previously Tsu, is a chain of sushi eat-in and take-away restaurants in London, England. There are restaurants at Canary Wharf, Chelsea, Notting Hill and Soho, plus a further twenty eight branches, with many providing a delivery service...
, a sushi restaurant in Piccadilly
Piccadilly
Piccadilly is a major street in central London, running from Hyde Park Corner in the west to Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is completely within the city of Westminster. The street is part of the A4 road, London's second most important western artery. St...
, London. Scaramella has stated he ate nothing and drank only water at the restaurant. On 1 December 2006 he was taken to University College Hospital
University College Hospital
University College Hospital is a teaching hospital located in London, United Kingdom. It is part of the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is closely associated with University College London ....
, and it was confirmed that he has been exposed to Polonium-210, the substance which was thought to have been eaten by Alexander Litvinenko at the aforementioned lunch, and which killed him. Although Scaramella initially denied having the substance in his body, his lawyer made a statement on the same day saying that they would make no comment until the results of the tests were finalised. A room at Ashdown Park Hotel, in Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
, where Scaramella is thought to have stayed whilst in the U.K. has been sealed off due to possible contamination.
Some news outlets have speculated that Scaramella may have been Litvinenko's assassin.
On 3 December Italian 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....
was quoted after speaking with Scaramella by phone, saying health officials had told Scaramella the dose of polonium he had received is usually fatal
Lethal dose
A lethal dose is an indication of the lethality of a given substance or type of radiation. Because resistance varies from one individual to another, the 'lethal dose' represents a dose at which a given percentage of subjects will die...
. Guzzanti told Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
:
"They also said so far, nobody could ever survive this poison, so it is very unlikely he could. But, if he doesn't collapse in three months, there is a kind of hope ... They said that every six months ... the radioactivity decreases by half".
Latest news inform that he was only exposed to minute traces of polonium.
Litvinenko's brother Maxim, who lives in Italy, told that Scaramella wanted to use his brother as a source for his research into Italian politicians and their alleged links to the Russian intelligence services. According to Maxim, one of the things Alexander Litvinenko did for Scaramella was sit down in front of a video camera in early 2006 in Rome. Litvinenko said that the video should not be leaked to the press, and warned that he personally knew nothing about Prodi. However he went on saying, in front of camera, that former FSB deputy chief Anatoly Trofimov
Anatoly Trofimov
Anatoly Vasilyevich Trofimov was a head of the Soviet KGB investigation department. He personally supervised all Soviet dissident cases including Sergei Kovalyov, Gleb Yakunin, Alexei Smirnov, and Yuri Orlov. He was later a deputy director of the Russian Federal Security Service and became a...
warned him in 2000 that he should not move to Italy because Prodi was "one of their men". Maxim said he was paid €200 in cash to translate on the day Scaramella recorded the video. Scaramella paid Alexander Litvinenko €500-600 to cover travel expenses.
Arrest
On 24 December 2006, Scaramella returned to ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
where he was immediately arrested by DIGOS
DIGOS
The General Investigations and Special Operations Division , mainly known with its acronym DIGOS, is an Italian law enforcement agency, charged with investigating sensitive cases relating to terrorism, organized crime and serious offences such as kidnapping and extortion.It is a special operative...
, a division of the Italian national police
Polizia di Stato
The Polizia di Stato is one of the national police forces of Italy.It is the main police force for providing police duties and it is also responsible for patrolling motorways , railways , airports , customs as well as certain waterways, and assisting the local police...
. He is charged with calumny, gunrunning
Gunrunning
Arms trafficking, also known as gunrunning, is the illegal trafficking or smuggling of contraband weapons or ammunition.The 1997 Report of the UN Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms provides a more refined and precise definition, which has become internationally accepted...
, and violating state secret
State Secret
State Secret is a 1950 British drama film directed by Sidney Gilliat and starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Jack Hawkins, Glynis Johns and Herbert Lom. It was released in the United States under the title The Great Manhunt.-Cast:...
s. Scaramella was accused by Pietro Saviotti, a Rome prosecutor, of being involved in shipments of arms intended for an attempt on his own life and that of Senator Guzzanti. The case concerns on Scaramella's accounts to police of a plot against his life by the ex-Ukrainian agent Alexander Talik. Prosecutors suspect Scaramella may have made this false flag
False flag
False flag operations are covert operations designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is flying the flag of a country other than one's own...
plot up to pressure Litvinenko to give him information he wanted, or to make himself seem more credible as a parliamentary consultant. According to court documents, Talik said that Scaramella once asked him to sign a letter making false accusations against an unidentified Russian. The private meeting took place after Scaramella had told police Talik was trying to kill him. Talik told police:
"He showed me the police statement and then showed me a letter that I should have signed, but I didn't do it because they were lies."
A judge denied Scaramella bail, citing concerns that he might flee. In April 2007 he was transferred to a hospital and later placed under house arrest
House arrest
In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...
The Mitrokhin Commission
Scaramella's 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 Italian Parliament's Mitrokhin Commission investigating KGBKGB
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...
activity in Italy. Several Italian newspapers have reported interceptions of telephone calls between the president of the commission, 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....
, a member of ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi
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 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....
party, and Mario Scaramella (on 30 November 2006 in 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 :...
and on 1 December 2006 in L'Unità
L'Unità
l'Unità is an Italian left-wing newspaper, originally founded as official newspaper of the Italian Communist Party.-History:L'Unità was founded by Antonio Gramsci on 12 February 1924, as the newspaper of workers and peasants, the official newspaper of Italian Communist Party : it was printed in...
). 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...
as tied to the KGB, and financed by Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
in order to discredit him. Scaramella, according to the interceptions, was to collect false witnesses among KGB refugees in Europe to support this aim. The Mitrokhin Commission was shut down in 2006 without any concrete result provided, a new parliamentary commission instituted to investigate about it.
According to prosecutor Pietro Salvitti, cited by 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:...
and who has indicted Scaramella, 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
SISMI
Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare was the military intelligence agency of Italy from 1977-2007....
indicted in 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...
, as well as SISMI
SISMI
Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare was the military intelligence agency of Italy from 1977-2007....
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. 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 ECPP
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,...
, who lives today in the US. Marino has acknowledged in an interview an association with former and active CIA officers, including Lou Palombo, who worked 22 years for Langley
Langley, Virginia
Langley is an unincorporated community in the census-designated place of McLean in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States.The community was essentially absorbed into McLean many years ago, although there is still a Langley High School...
's agency, and Robert Lady, former CIA station chief in Milan, indicted by prosecutor Armando Spataro for having coordinated the abduction of Abu Omar
Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr
Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr , also known as Abu Omar, is an Egyptian cleric. In 2003 he was living in Milan, Italy, from where he was kidnapped and allegedly later tortured in Egypt. This "Imam rapito affair" prompted a series of investigations in Italy, culminating in the criminal convictions 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...
. Slate Magazine reported that Scarmella stated that he was recruited by the CIA.http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2006/12/the_secret_life_of_mario_scaramella.html Russian sources have stated that he was working to discredit the Russians and may have been the one who actually poisoned Litvinenko http://www.eurotrib.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2006/11/19/20439/209. Scarmella also wanted to discredit Italian Prime Minister Prodi by accusing him of being a KGB agent because of Prodi's criticism of US foreign policy in Iraq and elsewhere.
External links
- The Secret Life of Mario Scaramella - Slate Magazine, 11 December 2006
- The Times - Poison plotters claim their second victim 2 December 2006
- Sushi bar man is nuclear waste expert Evening StandardEvening StandardThe Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
, 25 November 2006 - FSB Denies Attempting To Kill Russian Defector in London - Kavkaz CenterKavkaz CenterThe Kavkaz Center is a privately run website by pro-Chechen which aims to be "a Chechen internet agency which is independent, international and Islamic" that "does not represent the viewpoint of any state structures"...
, 13 November 2006 - Soviet Navy left 20 nuclear warheads in bay of Naples' - The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, 19 March 2005 - The Litvinenko murder: Scaramella - The Italian Connection - The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, 3 December 2006 - Environmental Crime Prevention Programme - home page
- Statute of the Environmental Crime Prevention Programme - by Mario Scaramella
- 'Meeting Scaramella' by Rome based journalist-writer Philip Willan