Renato Schifani
Encyclopedia
Renato Maria Giuseppe Schifani (born 11 May 1950) is an Italian
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...

 politician and a prominent member of the centre-right People of Freedom. Since 29 April 2008 he has been President of the Italian Senate. Schifani was born in Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...

.

Berlusconi's chief whip

Schifani used to be a lawyer specialised in trials at the Supreme Court of Cassation
Court of Cassation (Italy)
The Supreme Court of Cassation is the major court of last resort in Italy. It has its seat in the Rome Hall of Justice.The Court of Cassation exists also to “ensure the observation and the correct interpretation of law” by ensuring the same application of law in the inferior and appeal courts...

 , the major court of last resort. He specialized in real estate regulations and became active in the debt collecting business. Filippo Mancuso
Filippo Mancuso
Filippo Mancuso was an Italian judge and politician. In 1995 he was Italy's Minister of Justice in the government of Lamberto Dini. The Italian Senate voted a motion of no confidence against him and this fact was the first time during the republican period. The left wing and Lega Nord complained...

, the former minister of Justice born in Palermo, termed Schifani “the prince of debt collectors” (“il principe del recupero crediti”). Prior to joining 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....

 in 1995, he was an active member of Christian Democracy
Christian Democracy (Italy)
Christian Democracy was a Christian democratic party in Italy. It was founded in 1943 as the ideological successor of the historical Italian People's Party, which had the same symbol, a crossed shield ....

. Elected in 1996 in the Altofonte
Altofonte
Altofonte is a comune in the Province of Palermo in the Italian region Sicily, located about 9 km southwest of Palermo....

-Corleone
Corleone
Corleone is a small town and comune of approximately 12,000 inhabitants in the Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy....

 district in Sicily, Schifani served as 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 chief whip in the Italian Senate.

In 2002, Schifani was a protagonist in the attempt to secure the embedding of the provisional Article 41-bis prison regime
Article 41-bis prison regime
In Italian law, Article 41-bis of the Prison Administration Act is a provision that allows the Minister of Justice or the Minister of the Interior to suspend certain prison regulations...

 – used against people imprisoned for particular crimes such as 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...

 involvement – as a definitive measure in Italian law.

2004 Immunity Law (lodo Schifani)

Schifani and Antonio Maccanico, senator of the centre left L’Ulivo (Olive Tree) political coalition, gave their name to a bill aimed at granting immunity to the top five representatives of the State, including 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...

 (although the other four were not facing trial). After extensive revisions of the text of the law by the Senate, Maccanico withdraw his name from the project.
The lodo Schifani decree was then approved in June 2003 by the Italian parliament guaranteeing immunity to 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...

. The law was subsequently declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court on January 13, 2004.

Similar provisions were included in the lodo Alfano
Lodo Alfano
The Lodo Alfano , named after Berlusconi's Minister of Justice Angelino Alfano, was an Italian law, valid between 2008 and 2009, granting immunity from prosecution to the four highest political offices in Italy...

Act (2008), granting immunity to the top four representatives of the State, including Berlusconi and the same Schifani as Speaker of the Senate.
After being granted immunity Schifani has sued his critics Travaglio and Tabucchi for slander, allegedly claiming 1,3 million from Tabucchi as the author declared in the transmission Annozero, feb 5th 2009.
The lodo Alfano was declared anti-constitutional in October 2009 as well.

President of the Senate

Schifani was elected as President of the Senate on April 29, 2008, following the general election
Italian general election, 2008
A snap general election was held in Italy on 13 April and 14 April 2008. The election came after President Giorgio Napolitano dissolved parliament on 6 February 2008 following the defeat of the government of Prime Minister Romano Prodi in a January 2008 Senate vote, and the unsuccessful tentative...

 held earlier in the month. He received 178 out of 319 votes.

Alleged Mafia connections

In 1979, Renato Schifani founded and became managing director of the firm Siculabrokers. Enrico La Loggia (who would later become minister of Regional Affairs), Benny D'Agostino, Giuseppe Lombardo and Nino Mandalà were among its shareholders.

Benny D’Agostino is an entrepreneur convicted for 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...

 association, Mandalà was convicted for Mafia association and was indicated by the Court as the Mafia boss of Villabate
Villabate
Villabate is a comune in the Province of Palermo in the Italian region Sicily, located about 8 km southeast of Palermo. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 19,441 and an area of 3.8 km²....

, Lombardo was chairman and member of the board of Satris, a credit recovery agency whose shareholders were Nino and Ignazio Salvo, well known businessmen and Mafiosi of the Salemi “family,” arrested by prosecutor Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...

 in 1984.

According to the pentito
Pentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...

 (Mafia turncoat) Francesco Campanella, Antonio Mandalà and La Loggia in the 1990s agreed on the master plan for the shopping centre they wanted to develop in the town of Villabate, which aroused the interests of politicians and the Mafia. Schifani, La Loggia and the civil engineer Guzzaro -– the consultant who advised the town -– would share the consulting fees for drawing up the master plan. The master plan of the town of Villabate was designed under specific instruction of Antonino and Nicola Mandalà (Antonino’s son who was responsible for the logistics to keep the fugitive Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano is a member of the Sicilian Mafia and is suspected of having been the head of the Corleonesi, a Mafia faction that originated in the village of Corleone, and de facto capo di tutti capi of the entire Sicilian Mafia until his arrest in 2006.His nickname is Binnu u tratturi...

 at large). They conspired with the local Mafia families and politicians to skim from the public contracts.

In 1992, Schifani along with Antonio Mangano and Antonino Garofalo founded GMS, another credit recovery agency. Schifani's partner Garofalo was charged with usury
Usury
Usury Originally, when the charging of interest was still banned by Christian churches, usury simply meant the charging of interest at any rate . In countries where the charging of interest became acceptable, the term came to be used for interest above the rate allowed by law...

 and extortion
Extortion
Extortion is a criminal offence which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime...

 in 1997. However, Schifani was not mentioned in the police investigation. In both cases Schifani has never been investigated for any Mafia-related offence, much less tried.

Media row with Travaglio

On May 10, 2008, the journalist Marco Travaglio
Marco Travaglio
Marco Travaglio is an Italian investigative journalist, writer and commentator.-Biography:Travaglio was born in Turin. He started his career writing for Catholic publications such as Il nostro tempo , then worked for the renowned journalist Indro Montanelli for newspapers such as Il Giornale and...

 interviewed on the RAI
RAI
RAI — Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.A. known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane, is the Italian state owned public service broadcaster controlled by the Ministry of Economic Development. Rai is the biggest television company in Italy...

 current affairs talk show television programme Che tempo che fa, talked about the Italian media. He mentioned past relationships between Schifani and men who have subsequently been condemned for Mafia association as an example of a relevant fact ignored by almost all Italian newspapers which published a biography of Schifani as the new president of Senate.

The statement of Travaglio resulted in fierce and almost universally negative reactions including from the centre left, except for Antonio Di Pietro
Antonio Di Pietro
Antonio Di Pietro is an Italian politician. He was a Member of the European Parliament, an Italian Senator, and Minister of the Prodi Government...

 who said that Travaglio was ‘merely doing his job’. Some called for chief executives at RAI to be dismissed. The popular political commentator Beppe Grillo
Beppe Grillo
Giuseppe Piero Grillo, better known as Beppe Grillo , is an Italian activist, blogger, comedian, actor and politician, who also works in theatres and television.-Biography:Grillo was born in Genoa, Liguria....

 supported Travaglio, while Schifani announced he would go to Court and blame Travaglio for slander. Schifani said Travaglio's accusation was based on "inconsistent or manipulated facts, not even worthy of generating suspicions," adding that "someone wants to undermine the dialogue between the government and the opposition."
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