Series (8) – European money for the Mafia?

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(Kai Littmann) – In the first seven articles of this series, we have described the gas pipeline projects in Italy, the Italian judicial system, the functioning of the various organised crime groups in Italy, we have published the reaction of the European Commission and now it is time to move from theory to practice, by illustrating the abuses in business, justice and politics in Italy with a concrete example – the “Rosario Leo Files”.

Rosario Leo, born in 1959 in Ginosa in southern Italy, is a true “self-made man”. While still a student, he worked in his father’s construction company, spending his weekends on building sites while his friends enjoyed themselves in the clubs. But Rosario, an incredible bundle of energy, learned very early how to manage large construction sites, and soon he was able to start his own businesses, which prospered magnificently.

In 1994, together with other construction companies that formed temporary consortia for this purpose, and of which Rosario Leo became the head, he landed big contracts. These temporary consortia received orders in connection with the construction of large sections of the TAP gas pipeline, a very important infrastructure project for the energy supply of Italy and a large part of Europe. The commissioning of these temporary consortia for the construction of these sections in Calabria, in Basilicata, in Tuscany, in Campania, in other words in the whole of Italy, was carried out by the company Bonatti s.p.a.. Given that Bonatti s.p.a. was one of the general contractors of the energy group SNAM s.p.a., which in turn had been commissioned by the seventh largest energy giant in the world ENI s.p.a. to carry out this project, a golden future beckoned for these consortia and Rosario Leo on the horizon. Of course, the contracts with Bonatti stipulated that all partners involved had to comply with the Anti-Mafia Law (Legge 55/1990) and this law was still to play an important role. But this was not the beginning of a beautiful economic success story, but of a nightmare that continues to this day.

Work began and everything seemed to go as planned. The only problem – the general contractor Bonatti s.p.a. only partially paid the invoices of the consortia. This concerned mainly additional work caused by unforeseen difficulties, such as bad weather or geographical problems of the sites, which should have been contractually subject to additional payments. Of course, the consortia’s costs were incurred at the beginning of each month, such as workers’ wages, construction machinery, fuel and others. Despite Rosario Leo’s reminders to Bonatti, the payments did not arrive in full and each time Bonatti found further weak excuses to delay the payments.

In January 1996, the temporary consortia stopped the work because the invoices had not been paid in full and because Bonatti did not provide a reliable accounting, which the general contractor was obliged to do. Bonatti had already received the agreed sums from its client, SNAM s.p.a., which in turn had been paid by the project leader, the energy giant ENI s.p.a.. In addition, Bonatti did not forward the insurance compensation to the temporary consortia, which she herself had received from SNAM’s insurance company for unforeseeable problems. Later, Bonatti’s links with organised crime in other scandals became apparent through its majority shareholder (70% of Bonatti’s shares) Callisto Tanzi, who was sentenced to prison for the “disappearance” of 14 billion euros and membership in a criminal organisation.

Of course, the consortia and the companies concerned did not want to leave it at that and sued in several competent courts. From this point on, “il sistema” showed its full power, considering that organised crime in Italy has infiltrated the highest levels of the judicial system and politics in Italy.

To be clear, the failure to pay the consortia’s construction sites in full was not due to any shortcomings on the sites, quite the opposite. The courts of the judicial district of the Basilicata region confirmed the flawless execution of the incredibly complex works until they were stopped.

Since 1996, the files are sent back and forth between courts and the different levels of the judicial system and arrive systematically in courts where “complacent” juges and prosecutors work, where files are “lost” and to make sure that nothing can disturb “il sistema”, “complacent” judges and prosecutors are transferred to courts where the files would arrive next.

This was the moment when the Anti-Mafia-Law (Legge 55/1990) should have been activated, because this law forsees for such projects that the superior project lead has to pay any amounts his general contractor refuses to pay. In the present case, SNAM should have paid instead of Bonatti, but this never happened.

Several of the construction companies in the temporary consortia gave up and this was obviously the objective of this contractual and legal farce which aimed the bancruptcy of these construction companies who never received the full amount of money owed to them. But “il sistema” did not expect the tenacity of Rosario Leo, who had established over the years a waterproof file containing all documents related to this scandal and much more. This file is so complete that today, we can publish this series, since we are in possession of all evidence of everything stated in this series.

Rosario Leo has carried his case through all instances of the Italian judicial system. Courts, Court of Appeal, Court of Cassation, he has submitted his case to the President of the Italian Republic, to several prime ministers in the recent years, to the Superior Magistrate Counsel (the powerful structure which, under the presidency of the President of the Italian Republic, decides on nominations, removal and transfers of magistrates and which has the power to nominate magistrates wherever “il sistema” needs them), to the National Anti-Corruption Authority (ANAC), the National Anti-Mafia Directorate (DNA), the Police authorities – but everywhere, Rosario Leo was stopped by a wall of silence which is typical for „il sistema“.

Today, the entire Italian judicial system is informed and has received the complete “Rosario Leo Files”. Recepients of the files were the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella and the General Prosecutors at the Court of Cassation Pasquale Ciccolo, Riccardo Fuzzio, Giovanni Salvi and Luigi Salvato, the Court of Perugia which is in charge of the supervision of administrations in Rome (politicians, magistrates and and public officers). Several ministers had also promised to take care of the case, but nobody acted. All these persons have not only not fulfilled their duties, but they have clearly violated the Italian Constitution. Even worse, today, politics try to change the laws about prescription of legal procedures, abuse of office and the external participation in the activites of criminal organisations, in order to simply silence cases like this. If politics succeed in changing these laws, it would mean that nobody would be punished for these misdeeds.

The damage suffered by the temporary consortia amounts to more than 50 millions euros, but one should not forget the immaterial harm. Legal fees during almost 30 years, costs related to the numerous procedures, but also the breaking up of families, loss of health, loss of well running businesses and not realised benefits until today. Other entrepreneurs in these consortia did not have the mental strength of Rosario Leo – in some cases, people committed suicide and other tragedies happened as well.

On the European level, Rosario Leo can still not bring his case in front of the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg, because he first must run through all judicial instances in his own country. But more than seven years ago, the General Prosecutors office of the Court of Cassation in Rome has informed Rosario Leo that his case had been closed and this hinders him until today to call on the European Court of Human Rights, since there is no final judgement to this case.

But another current scandal might help the next steps in the “Rosario Leo Files” – the scandal concerning former judge Luca Palamara and former external lawyer of ENI Piero Amara (we had mentioned this case in an earlier article), who both had been convicted of corruption. To avoid going to prison, the two had started to publish a list of high ranked magistrates, politicians and other personalities who are member of “il sistema” and the Maconic lodge “Ungheria”. Last week, all of a sudden, both couldn’t remember anything anymore and all of a sudden, their sentence was reduced in an utmost surprising way. But this was too late. 40 of the 70 names on the list have already been published and now, there is hope that “il sistema” might collapse. Given the fact that the cooperation between organised crime, politics and the judicial system is a real plague for this wonderful country Italy, it would be high time…

In spite of this unbelievable case, Rosario Leo shows still an extremly positive attitude. This man whose life’s work has been destroyed by “il sistema” keeps fighting with tremendous courage and handles this case with the professional quality of a legal expert and – he will fight until this scandal is solved.

The next steps of Rosario Leo are clear – his case will be submitted to the European Prosecutors Office, to the Prosectutors Office in Brussels, to OLAF (the elite police entity which fights organised crime and corruption) and to EUROJUST in Den Haag. The members of “il sistema” whose names have not yet been publish are not feeling too well these days…

After six months of investigation, we will replace in the next article the „?“ in the title by a “!”… you should not miss that one!

Already published in this series:

Article 0
Article 1
Article 2 (special issue)
Article 3
Article 4
Article 5
Article 6
Article 7