Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi slapped a state secret designation on an internal document in 2016 that stemmed from an investigation into the Milan Rendition. The document reportedly absolves many rank and file officers of guilt in a botched anti-terror operation.
In 2003 a Muslim cleric was abducted from Milan, Italy, and flown to Egypt where he was allegedly tortured by that country’s government. The cleric would be released a year later after little evidence was found linking him to terror plots.
Although approved at the highest levels of the George W. Bush and Sylvio Berlusconi governments at the time, 26 rank and file CIA officers would be charged with crimes stemming from the botched operation. Along with the Americans several Italian officials would also be charged. Among them was Marco Mancini, at the time the number two official at AISE (formerly SISMI, the Italian military intelligence agency).
Mancini was charged in connection with the case and sentenced to 10 years in prison. His sentence would be reversed in 2014 by Italy’s highest court. The reason for the reversal was a state secrets privilege.
AISE, the Italian external intelligence service would conduct an internal review of the Milan Rendition. The results of that investigation were compiled to an originally unclassified document.
It is likely the names included in that document are those of officials in then Prime Minister Berlusconi’s office who authorized the rendition as well as the official who facilitated the Abu Omar operation by stopping an on-going DIGOS investigation so the CIA team could abduct the cleric. (DIGOS is an Italian law enforcement agency that investigates sensitive cases involving terrorism, organized crime and other offenses.)
Mancini filed a lawsuit in the summer of 2016 to get the document released. He would soon after become the subject of death threats. Afraid of the consequences of that release Italian Prime Minister at the time Matteo Renzi retroactively classified the document with a state secret designation ensuring it would remain sealed. Importantly, he also asked the court for dismissal of Mancini’s lawsuit.
Mancini would not long after find himself in a senior position at the Security Intelligence Department (DIS), roughly akin to the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Why were there threats made against Mancini’s life and just who is named in that document?
The lawsuit filed by Mancini generated enough interest in COPASIR, the parliamentary body charged with oversight of the Italian secret services, that Angelo Tofalo, former Italian parliament member and member of COPASIR, along with Felice Casson, COPASIR’s head, held numerous hearings with the head of AISE at the time, Alberto Manenti.
COPASIR made repeated requests for the document. Manenti would subsequently disavow the document, saying it held little bearing on the case.
Tofalo would argue differently. He wrote an op-ed in 2016 in which he claimed the document would “rewrite” the facts of the Milan Rendition if it were to come to light.
“We know that there is a document never revealed before, not covered by state secrecy, as confirmed by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi himself to the Ravenna prosecutor’s office (in the papers of the investigation for the threats delivered to Marco Mancini , 007 Italian), which would rewrite completely this sad page of history that involved the Italian secret services,” he wrote at the time.
“A document defined from time to time as an investigation or internal verification, which the Five Star Movement has been waiting to receive for months now, but which the Government does not provide. We doubt that this internal verification or investigation has never been recorded: is it now being recorded in Palazzo Chigi?” Tofalo asked referring to the prime minister’s office.
Tofalo would point out several other notable facts surrounding the document and the internal investigation. Namely:
-Several successive Italian prime ministers from Berlusconi to Renzi to Prodi to Monti – and others – would keep the state secret designation in place. Even officials who were demanding the truth be revealed when they were in the opposition subsequently supported secrecy when they came to power.
-Several main players in the scandal including General Nicolo Pollari, the former head of SISMI, as well as Mancini himself were never called before COPASIR.
-The presidency of the commission convened to study the scandal was given to the League Party, which at the time held only 4% of parliamentary seats. (By contrast Tofalo’s Five Star Party held over 25% of the seats in Italian Parliament at the time.)
Tofalo would contact Sabrina de Sousa, the only CIA officer who would serve prison time for charges stemming from the Abu Omar case, in 2017 to request a meeting. Casson would also contact de Sousa’s Italian lawyer asking if she would appear before the committee.
“Tofalo said that it was important that COPASIR get to the bottom of who in the Italian government was involved (and not named) since he did not believe that politicians engaged in a political cover up should hold office likely referring to Berlusconi whose was one of the political parties seeking the Prime Minister’s office,” de Sousa told ITN today.
“As Tofalo noted, it’s unfortunate that the Milan rendition fallout continues to be used as a political tool by successive Italian governments over the years. Sacrificing rank and file CIA and Italian intelligence officers has greatly impacted our joint counter terror effort,” she added.
de Sousa informed the committee through her lawyer that COPASIR should contact the U.S. embassy for authorization to appear before them. She never heard back nor was pressured to do so while serving her sentence.
Tofalo’s 5-Star Party would go on to form a coalition government in Italy while Berlusconi’s Forza Italia Party lost. Tofalo became the Italian Deputy Defense Minister. Both he and COPASIR as a body appeared to lose interest in getting the truth out about the Abu Omar case.
The relationship between Mancini and Renzi however, is once again drawing attention after it was revealed the two met secretly in December. The meeting was unusual for its location: a highway rest stop.
Renzi says he met with Mancini to receive a chocolate Santa before Christmas.
The timing of the meeting also raises eyebrows. It was less than three weeks after news of ItalyGate broke in Italian media and several weeks before Renzi pulled support for Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s government in January precipitating a crisis in Italian government.
Under Italy’s system of government, the Prime Minister is ultimately responsible for invoking or revoking the state secret privilege. One of the main points of contention between Renzi and Conte was control of the Italian Secret Services portfolio.