Italians lap up phone-tap leaks but unease grows
Tue May 30, 2006 12:39 PM BST
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By Gavin Jones
ROME (Reuters) - Italians already soaking up the early summer sun at the seaside are engrossed in exactly the same beach reading as last year -- newspapers full of details of secretly recorded telephone conversations of famous people.
Last year it was finance, this year it's soccer. Last year the prime "victim" was former central bank chief Antonio Fazio, this year it's Luciano Moggi, the former general manager of Italy's most successful club, Juventus.
Fazio was suspected by prosecutors of insider trading. Moggi is being probed for alleged match fixing. They were both forced to resign by the publication of transcripts of embarrassing but often entertaining taps.
"I locked the referee in the changing room and took the keys to the airport, now they'll have to knock down the door to let him out," Moggi boasted to a friend on the phone after "kidnapping" a referee whom he judged had penalised Juventus.
"Tonino, I'm moved ... I have goosebumps ... I'd like to kiss you on the forehead," disgraced banker Gianpiero Fiorani famously told the supposedly neutral Fazio after he had approved Fiorani's bid to take over a rival bank.
Yet neither Fazio nor Moggi have been charged with any crime and many Italians believe the taps, and particularly their use by the media, are a voyeuristic abuse of defendants' rights.
The transcripts are thought to be leaked either by the prosecutors' office or by clients' lawyers. The publication of transcripts of Moggi's phone calls is illegal because the investigation is still ongoing.
A suspect exposed to public ridicule can be forced from office even if he is innocent and in any case has less chance of subsequently defending himself in the courts, the critics say.
"We are supposed to be a nation of civil guarantees, the phone taps are barbaric," said seven-times prime minister Giulio Andreotti, who was finally acquitted two years ago after more than a decade of Mafia-related trials.
In Italy, a country of around 60 million people, nearly 30 million might have had phone calls recorded in the past decade, according to a study by the Eurispes research institute.
Advocates of wire taps say many high profile arrests, particularly of elusive Mafia fugitives, would not have been possible without the help of phone interceptions.
But centre-left senator Antonio Polito is one of many lawmakers who believe the use of the taps and their publication have gone far beyond what the law allows.
He is planning to set up a parliamentary inquiry into the problem, which he describes as "the biggest risk to (Italian) democracy since Fascism."
MOUNTAIN OR MOLEHILL?
Despite these concerns, Italy's press and television have shown no reservation about presenting Moggi as the lynchpin of a Mafia-type organisation that pulled all the strings in football until it went one phone-call too far.
A gravel-voiced, cigar-chomping wheeler-dealer, he looks perfectly cast for the role.
Yet Antonio Di Pietro, the former prosecutor who spearheaded the Italian Clean Hands corruption probe that brought down an entire political class in the early 1990s, said there was scarce evidence of the "sporting fraud" the investigators suspect.
"From a legal point of view I think we'll see a mountain has been made out of a molehill," Di Pietro said last week.
Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has often dismissed data on Italy's weak economy by pointing out that Italians had more mobile phones per head than almost anywhere in the world.
Moggi had six, and in the 2004-5 football season prosecutors reportedly tapped 100,000 of his phone calls, averaging out at an astonishing 416 calls per day.
Justice Minister Clemente Mastella has pledged to investigate reports that a former employee of Italy's main phone operator, Telecom Italia, has created a secret phone-tap database with 100,000 files on Italy's political, economic and sporting elite.
"We cannot live in Italy under the constant fear of being spied on," Mastella said.
Tue May 30, 2006 12:39 PM BST
Printer Friendly | Email Article | RSS
By Gavin Jones
ROME (Reuters) - Italians already soaking up the early summer sun at the seaside are engrossed in exactly the same beach reading as last year -- newspapers full of details of secretly recorded telephone conversations of famous people.
Last year it was finance, this year it's soccer. Last year the prime "victim" was former central bank chief Antonio Fazio, this year it's Luciano Moggi, the former general manager of Italy's most successful club, Juventus.
Fazio was suspected by prosecutors of insider trading. Moggi is being probed for alleged match fixing. They were both forced to resign by the publication of transcripts of embarrassing but often entertaining taps.
"I locked the referee in the changing room and took the keys to the airport, now they'll have to knock down the door to let him out," Moggi boasted to a friend on the phone after "kidnapping" a referee whom he judged had penalised Juventus.
"Tonino, I'm moved ... I have goosebumps ... I'd like to kiss you on the forehead," disgraced banker Gianpiero Fiorani famously told the supposedly neutral Fazio after he had approved Fiorani's bid to take over a rival bank.
Yet neither Fazio nor Moggi have been charged with any crime and many Italians believe the taps, and particularly their use by the media, are a voyeuristic abuse of defendants' rights.
The transcripts are thought to be leaked either by the prosecutors' office or by clients' lawyers. The publication of transcripts of Moggi's phone calls is illegal because the investigation is still ongoing.
A suspect exposed to public ridicule can be forced from office even if he is innocent and in any case has less chance of subsequently defending himself in the courts, the critics say.
"We are supposed to be a nation of civil guarantees, the phone taps are barbaric," said seven-times prime minister Giulio Andreotti, who was finally acquitted two years ago after more than a decade of Mafia-related trials.
In Italy, a country of around 60 million people, nearly 30 million might have had phone calls recorded in the past decade, according to a study by the Eurispes research institute.
Advocates of wire taps say many high profile arrests, particularly of elusive Mafia fugitives, would not have been possible without the help of phone interceptions.
But centre-left senator Antonio Polito is one of many lawmakers who believe the use of the taps and their publication have gone far beyond what the law allows.
He is planning to set up a parliamentary inquiry into the problem, which he describes as "the biggest risk to (Italian) democracy since Fascism."
MOUNTAIN OR MOLEHILL?
Despite these concerns, Italy's press and television have shown no reservation about presenting Moggi as the lynchpin of a Mafia-type organisation that pulled all the strings in football until it went one phone-call too far.
A gravel-voiced, cigar-chomping wheeler-dealer, he looks perfectly cast for the role.
Yet Antonio Di Pietro, the former prosecutor who spearheaded the Italian Clean Hands corruption probe that brought down an entire political class in the early 1990s, said there was scarce evidence of the "sporting fraud" the investigators suspect.
"From a legal point of view I think we'll see a mountain has been made out of a molehill," Di Pietro said last week.
Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has often dismissed data on Italy's weak economy by pointing out that Italians had more mobile phones per head than almost anywhere in the world.
Moggi had six, and in the 2004-5 football season prosecutors reportedly tapped 100,000 of his phone calls, averaging out at an astonishing 416 calls per day.
Justice Minister Clemente Mastella has pledged to investigate reports that a former employee of Italy's main phone operator, Telecom Italia, has created a secret phone-tap database with 100,000 files on Italy's political, economic and sporting elite.
"We cannot live in Italy under the constant fear of being spied on," Mastella said.
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