Bari case and dossier, Verini (Pd): “The right wants to transform the Anti-Mafia into a special court”

Senator Walter Verini, this Sunday opens with a concern. That of an Anti-Mafia commission, in which you are the group leader of the Democratic Party, which by will of the right should also deal with the Bari case. Does this seem plausible to you?

“On this right there are those who want to use a delicate body such as the Anti-Mafia as a Special Court against opponents, if not as a firing squad. So much so that they have been using the Bari affair for weeks in precisely this sense. For reasons of electoral propaganda, and with little sense of institutions.”

We are therefore well beyond the tasks assigned to the Commission.

“You see, the Anti-Mafia can make a contribution in the fight against organized crime. Drug trafficking, usury and gambling, money laundering, invasive penetration into the legal economy and finance, cybersecurity, effective and efficient management of confiscated goods and assets. And obviously in the protection of collaborators and repentants. And then connections between massacres, political environments and neo-fascism. These are the priority things that the Commission must deal with loyally, which cannot be used as an electoral truncheon”.

But it was Vice President D’Attis, of Forza Italia, who asked for it. Coincidentally, an Apulian…

“This aggravates the situation. D’Attis is a protagonist of Apulian politics. He knows that reality well. With Sisto, another colleague from Bari, he went to Piantedosi to ask for the access commission. The dissolution of the Municipality of Bari has been discussed. A very serious matter, to which the city is responding democratically. A city that has an administration and a mayor who, as the heads of the prosecutor’s office and also Don Luigi Ciotti have said, have always been on the side of legality. And now we get to ask for instrumental hearings and acquisitions of documents. This electoral activism by D’Attis makes his institutional role lose credibility.”

How do you read Gasparri’s presence in the Anti-Mafia and also in the Senate Justice Committee? Forza Italia returns as a protagonist as in Berlusconi’s time and in view of the European elections?

“Bah, an old score is being played, with interpreters from yesterday and today, Berlusconi’s lawyers in Parliament, and so on. Gasparri fights with his usual tools: words often like a truncheon. The theme is always the same, attacking the independence of the judiciary. While, in my opinion, Politics – as was done with the system reforms during the Draghi government – should respect the autonomy of the judiciary. Which, in turn, should turbocharge an action of self-regeneration, fight against currentism, personalism, and recover the full credibility necessary for the best functioning of justice”.

If Forza Italia insists on the idea of ​​introducing the Bari case to San Macuto, would you be ready to block the work?

“But it is this attitude – first and foremost, but not only, of Forza Italia – which risks betraying the functions and tasks of the Commission, distorting it and effectively deciding its crisis. You see, this Commission has played an important role over the decades under different presidents. From Chiaromonte to Violante, from Pisanu to Del Turco, up to Rosy Bindi, just to mention a few. If it is prevented from carrying out its role, exhausting its function, the majority assumes a serious responsibility”.

They are also increasingly asking for De Raho’s resignation…

“Here too, the tone and manner of this request are unacceptable. De Raho was a protagonist of the anti-mafia fight. He will decide, with his experience and his authority, what is the best way to be useful to the Commission’s work on the so-called dossier affair. Certain tones, starting from those of Gasparri, seem instead to be intimations to a parliamentarian, obviously from the opposition, rather than an invitation to reflection”.

In this climate, is it a coincidence that the psycho-aptitude tests for the Gellinian robes will also go to the CDM tomorrow?

“Precisely, in this climate we never stop hitting rock bottom. This government is intolerant of controls, of the independence of the judiciary, of the separation of powers, of investigative journalism, daily throwing off the mask of a false guaranteeism, proclaimed but practiced only in favor of friends of the establishment and white collar workers”.