Italy – Rosario Leo’s fight continues

Rosario Leo continues his fight for justice against "il sistema". Foto: FD/EJ CC-BY 2.0

(KL) – Last year, after a long investigation in Italy, Eurojournalist(e) had published a long series called “European money for the mafia”. This series was about how “il sistema”, this “state within the state”, consisting of politicians, magistrates, captains of industry and organized crime, which had driven Rosario Leo, an entrepreneur from southern Italy to ruin, together with other companies by simply not paying his invoices for the construction of several gas pipelines. The resulting material damage amounts to around 50 million euros, but despite the incredible length of the legal proceedings, which have been fruitless for 30 years (!), Rosario Leo continues to fight. Now it’s on to the next round.

It’s a shame – Italy is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, the Italians are an incredibly friendly people, and yet not much in Italy works as it should. The reason for this is a thoroughly corrupt system in which the players of “il sistema” rule the country, whereby the current Meloni government with its Minister of Justice Carlo Nordio is currently trying to make the illegal machinations of “il sistema” unpunishable, for example by abolishing criminal offences such as abuse of office. The work of the investigating authorities against members of “il sistema”, such as telephone surveillance, should also no longer be possible for this group of people.

But “il sistema” is increasingly coming into the crosshairs of the authorities, in which, for example, the head of Europe’s largest public prosecutor’s office in Naples, Nicola Gratteri, is waging an increasingly fierce battle against organised crime and the corrupt players in “il sistema”. Rosario Leo is also waging his own personal battle against this system, which has ruined his flourishing civil engineering company.

Last year, Rosario Leo submitted his case to the European authorities, to the new European Public Prosecutor’s Office in Luxembourg, where the proceedings are still pending and not moving, to the European anti-corruption authority OLAF in Brussels, to EUROJUST in The Hague, the body tasked with coordinating the work of the judicial authorities in the EU member states, to the European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders and, of course, to the Italian MEPs. But everywhere Rosario Leo encountered a wall of silence. Apparently, corruption in Italy is a well-known phenomenon among the European authorities and no action is taken against it.

But even after 30 years of fighting “il sistema”, Rosario Leo is not giving up. On August 8, Rosario Leo filed another complaint with the Catanzaro public prosecutor’s office in southern Italy and is currently preparing the next wave of contacts with the European authorities. All Italian MEPs will once again be confronted with this case, in which large companies with partial state involvement such as ENI spa. or SNAM spa. have repeatedly violated the anti-mafia law (Legge 55/1990), which the Italian judicial authorities have systematically swept under the carpet over the last three decades. The new Commissioner for Justice will also have to deal with this case and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office will also have to take a stand in the ongoing proceedings.

Our series will therefore continue in autumn, as we will be following Rosario Leo’s fight to resolve this scandal. In the hope, of course, that this courageous man will find justice in the end.