All of Meloni's lies about the Almasri case: how the prime minister fled Parliament, sending her ministers to lie.

Giorgia Meloni, who has consistently refused to report to Parliament on the Almasri case, now announces she wants to sit " next to Piantedosi, Nordio, and Mantovano at the vote on the authorization to proceed," is aiming for a show in front of the cameras in the Chamber, certain she won't encounter any surprises from the majority. But Giorgia Meloni has consistently avoided Parliament.

Let's go back to last January: signs depicting fleeing black rabbits were held up by the opposition, demanding that the Prime Minister explain to the Chamber why Libyan torturer Almasri, an ally of the Meloni government, was saved from trial by the International Criminal Court on January 21st by an Italian intelligence Falcon aircraft that cannot take flight without the green light from the Prime Minister's Office and Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano, who is responsible for intelligence. For weeks, her presence was requested, but she—who now claims she is not just any Conte and will not leave her ministers to fend for themselves— preferred to send Justice Minister Carlo Nordio and Interior Minister Piantedosi to the Chamber instead, while some of the survivors of Almasri's torture in Libya said at a press conference in Montecitorio: " I was tortured by Almasri in the Mitiga prison he directed." Of course. It doesn't win Italian votes to have to explain in Parliament, live on TV, that you're presiding over a government under blackmail from Libyan cutthroats who can reveal inappropriate details if they discuss their relationships with Italian governments (and not just that, of course; we start—and continue—with Minniti, a minister in the Gentiloni government ). It's not a good look to tell the Chamber that you can't reveal the agreements made with militia leader Almasri , who calls himself a general ever since the Italian government paid him to smuggle migrants into Libyan concentration camps, and that for this reason, as Prime Minister, you're held by the throat by him and his bandits.

The Giorgia Meloni who now claims "to have been informed in advance and to have shared the decision made" regarding the treatment of the torturer is the same Giorgia Meloni who on January 25th—when the slap in the face to Italy of the photos of Almasri under the steps of the Falcon with the Italian flag in Tripoli greeted by cheering bandits was still fresh—could not avoid a very quick meeting with journalists while fortunately for her, far away from Italy, in Jeddah, said: "The decision was the judges', not the government's." The Giorgia Meloni who now writes " it's absurd to ask that Piantedosi, Nordio, and Mantovano be tried, and not me too, before them" is the same one who, in the midst of the storm, hid below decks at Palazzo Chigi and sent Nordio to Parliament in her place, first to say that he needed time to read the International Criminal Court documents because they were written in English and contained errors, and then to Piantedosi to refuse to answer two questions on the Falcon intelligence aircraft that took off from Ciampino on January 21st to be ready in Turin to pick up the Libyan torturer Almasri long before the Court of Appeal ordered his release because Nordio had not requested his arrest as he was legally required to do.

The hubbub created by the myriad versions the Meloni government has offered about this extremely serious affair cannot hide the crystal-clear facts. It's a matter of timing; there's little room for deception. The Falcon's takeoff time alone is enough to demonstrate that the government had already made the decision to remove the Libyan citizen (as Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Piantedosi call him) from the International Criminal Court (ICC) before the Rome Court of Appeal, which has jurisdiction over the requests from the Hague Court, announced that the precautionary measures would not be validated. Why, after his release, was a man wanted by the ICC rushed to Tripoli on a state flight? Why wasn't he kept available in Italy, for example, under probation? Piantedosi responded in Parliament as follows: "Following the Court of Appeal's failure to validate the case, the Libyan citizen was at liberty. He presented a risk to society, as evidenced by the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant. Therefore, I issued an expulsion order for reasons of state security pursuant to Article 13, paragraph 1, of the Consolidated Law on Immigration." This article is used to remove individuals deemed dangerous (but not pursued by arrest warrants) from the national territory. It was a shrewd move, reasoning from the perspective of the Libyan criminal's supporters, to keep the plane there ready for takeoff: because Almasri, as soon as he was released from prison, could have been rearrested. Flying him away in the Falcon to return him to Libya was the surest way to guarantee that The Hague would not prosecute him.

The Hague Court, asking Italy why it prevented Almasri from being brought before the Tribunal, cites the valuable work of Radio Radicale reporter Sergio Scandura, who exposed the Meloni government with clear evidence. Scandura documented that the Falcon took off from Rome Ciampino Airport on January 21 to pick up the Libyan long before the Court's ruling and long before Nordio's press release in which the minister said he was " evaluating." Therefore, the decision was made elsewhere, and the Prosecutor and the Court of Appeal complied. Scandura notes: " At 4:04 PM, Minister Nordio delivered the press release to journalists. The Italian Falcon 900 left Rome Ciampino Airport at 11:14 AM and was already at Turin Caselle Airport by 12:15 PM, ready to pick up Almasri, who would then be returned to Tripoli that evening." In the afternoon, the ministry's press release announced a great deal of brainstorming on the case (" considering the complex correspondence" ), ( "Nordio is evaluating" ), but in reality the outcome had already been decided long before because the plane from Ciampino took off at 11:14 in the morning.

In the supplementary brief submitted to the International Criminal Court, to avoid having Italy accused of exempting a defendant accused of crimes against humanity from trial , the government writes that " at the time of Almasri's arrest, there were concrete risks of retaliation against Italian citizens in Libya," attempting to evoke a state of necessity that amounts to admitting being held under blackmail by allied criminal militiamen. And it writes that the Falcon was already on the tarmac before the judges' decision on the arrested man's fate, for reasons of cost savings: "The plane was already departing for the other Libyans arrested with Almasri." In other words: we sent the Falcon to Turin because, in case Almasri were also released, we wanted to get away with a single trip. Four criminals on one flight. A significant saving.

FROM

Angela Nocioni