ITALY: Reforms set to rein-in anti-corruption measuresFrom Philip Willan in Rome
ITALY has one of the highest levels of cellphone penetration in the world and Italians generally love to talk. So it's not surprising that telephone taps and the sophisticated analysis of telephone traffic has helped roll up the last generation of the Red Brigades, put mafia bosses behind bars, arrest potential Islamist terrorists and caused embarrassment to loose-tongued politicians.
But it is this last category who appear to be behind legislative moves to rein in the use of telephone intercepts even though anti-mafia investigators warn it would prove a serious obstacle to the ongoing battle against organised crime.
National anti-mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso has told parliament his investigations could be hampered if a new law prevents him from using wiretaps to gather information on relatively minor crimes, such as extortion and fraud, perpetrated by the major crime organisations, and if it restricts the timeframe during which taps can be conducted.
Last year magistrates obtained almost 80,000 phone tap authorisations at a cost to the state of 224 million (£200m). The figure does not mean that 80,000 people had their phones tapped but rather reflects the fact that criminals tend to make use of multiple telephones in an effort to evade detection.
The government says the cost is too high, the electronic snooping too pervasive, and that it is intolerable that the results of the intercepts frequently end up published in the newspapers. The proposed remedy is to limit the use of taps to serious crimes carrying a penalty of at least 10 years' imprisonment and to increase the punishment for officials and journalists involved in leaks.
But magistrates have warned that the changes are just one of a number of reforms that would reduce the autonomy and effectiveness of the judiciary and make it more difficult to detect the white-collar crimes committed by politicians.
Silvio Berlusconi has himself been a victim of telephone taps. Interceptions ordered by Naples magistrates revealed the prime minister's lively interest in the TV careers of a number of actresses. Audio files of some of his private conversations ended up on the website of the weekly magazine L'Espresso.
Big Brother's all-hearing ear has also picked up embarrassing conversations involving leading members of the centre-left opposition. Phone taps are at the basis of corruption cases being mounted against centre-left local government officials in Naples and Florence, causing acute embarrassment to opposition leader Walter Veltroni.
Now many fear the scandals could cause politicians to close ranks and bolster Berlusconi's plans to trim the claws of the prosecutors.
Perhaps the most sensitive case of all involves an investigation into alleged corruption and fraud in the southern province of Calabria. The case, based in large part on telephone intercepts, has touched politicians of all political colours, including Democrat Party president Romano Prodi and his justice minister, Clemente Mastella.
Both men were cleared of wrongdoing, but only after the original prosecutor was yanked off the case and following allegations of inappropriate ties between some of his colleagues and the politicians he was investigating.
The case, initiated by Catanzaro prosecutor Luigi De Magistris, came to a head in an extraordinary judicial stand-off between the colleagues who inherited his investigations and prosecutors from Salerno who were following up on De Magistris's complaints about political interference in his inquiry.
Salerno prosecutors sent police to the Catanzaro to seize their colleagues' documentation and raid the homes of seven magistrates. One prosecutor claimed he had been strip-searched and that police had searched his children's schoolbags.
A key role in De Magistris's inquiry has been played by telecoms investigator Gioacchino Genchi, who tapped phone calls and analysed telephone traffic on behalf of the Catanzaro prosecutor.
Genchi, who has also worked on sensitive cases for many other prosecutors, is reported to have amassed a database of telephone numbers belonging to 392,000 individuals, including parliamentarians and the heads of the secret services. Cross-party concern has been voiced in parliament about this "absolutely abnormal situation".
Genchi has responded robustly, suggesting in a radio interview that some of those wringing their hands were politicians and magistrates who feared the evidence he was uncovering.
An association representing relatives of mafia victims has come out strongly in his support. It said: "His fault' is to have collaborated as a consultant in one of the most important investigations of recent years and to have threatened the system of deviant powers that in Italy forms the basis of our false democracy."
Last week Gerardo D'Ambrosio, a former anti-corruption Milan magistrate who is now an opposition MP, warned his colleagues against limiting the judiciary. "We can't compromise on justice with a premier who has passed unconstitutional laws to halt his own trials and, when that didn't work, abolished his crimes," he said. Berlusconi's reforms, he added, would make it more difficult to detect corruption. "At a time of global crisis, that seems incredible."
