Almasri, report to the Chamber of Deputies by the end of September. Clash between government and ANM

The conclusion is that "without prejudice to the powers of the competent branch of Parliament to assess the relevance of any political reasons underlying the conduct of the suspects, so as to affect the granting of authorisation to proceed, this Court of Ministers, in the exercise of the functions entrusted to it by Constitutional Law No. 1/89, considering the subsumability of the described conduct in the hypothesis of the offence under Article 328 ascribable to Piantedosi Matteo and Mantovano Alfredo, and considering the 1ninisterial nature of such offences, cannot but proceed to the cormpiuta formulation of the charge on which the Chamber of Deputies will be called to assess the existence of the prerequisites provided for by Article 9 of the above-mentioned Constitutional Law for the possible granting of the authorisation to proceed".

In the meantime, the umpteenth episode of the government-magistrates clash has been staged, this time interpreted through the Almasri case. The archiving of Giorgia Meloni alone, on the assumption that she had no active part in the decision to free the Libyan commander on whom an international arrest warrant was pending, had already sent the Prime Minister into a rage. To set the dust on fire in the last few hours are the words of the president of the Anm Cesare Parodi, on the day after the results of the investigation by the Court of Ministers on the other three involved, Alfredo Mantovano, Matteo Piantedosi and Carlo Nordio, finally arrive at the Chamber.

With a request for authorisation to proceed. It is precisely the Guardasigilli who thunders against the national association of magistrates guilty, according to the Fdi minister, of an 'unacceptable invasion of the field'. On early morning radio, Parodi actually expresses an opinion on a possible trial involving Giusi Bartolozzi, Nordio's chief of staff. Asked by the interviewer about the impact of a possible case against her, the number one of the ANM observed that 'a trial in which certain facts are ascertained, perhaps definitively, clearly has a political impact, not even indirectly, on the people involved'. The minister, who has always defended his closest collaborator, writes a note in which he says he is 'disconcerted' by the words of an ANM president 'considered, until now, balanced'. While Bartolozzi's name 'as far as I know, is not even mentioned in the acts, I do not know how he allows himself' writes Nordio, who shortly afterwards, in the Chamber to vote for the lay member of the Csm, tries to avoid the barrage of journalists.

A passage to the buvette, accompanied as always by Bartolozzi. At the umpteenth attempt, Nordio got away with 'the president of the Council has spoken for everyone', only then, watch in hand, to observe that 'at 1.15 p.m. I have still not received anything', despite the fact that 'the law stipulates' that notifications must be 'transmitted immediately'.

The papers in fact only reached the Chamber late in the evening. Until then, as with Nordio, neither Piantedosi nor Mantovano had been notified of anything: in Meloni's filing decree, as she herself explained, the Court of Ministers specified that the positions of the other government representatives would be dealt with 'separately'. And here comes the request for authorisation to proceed for all three.

A choice, that of dividing the destinies of the prime minister, ministers and undersecretary to the presidency, which certainly was not solicited by Palazzo Chigi, one of the remarks filtering from the government building. There is reasoning that the Court of Ministers considered Mantovano's willingness to be heard on the Almasri case to be of no use (the magistrates would have liked to hear Nordio instead, who never showed up). In addition, it is reasoned at the top levels of the executive, the decree for the premier is dated 1 August and 'after 4 days' there are still no acts transmitted by the Public Prosecutor's Office (led by Francesco Lo Voi) to the Chambers.

Also casting a shadow on the case, according to the premier's loyalists, is the fact that the ANM, in the person of its president, speaks of a trial (the possible trial of Bartolozzi) of which no one is currently aware. But it was a misunderstanding, Parodi hastens to point out. "I have never mentioned or referred to Dr Bartolozzi, I have developed a general line of reasoning that does not depend on the investigation in progress,' the magistrate defends himself, emphasising that otherwise Nordio would be 'perfectly right to speak of invasion of the field, an approach that does not belong to me either culturally or character-wise'. While in the majority there are those who wonder whether it was a 'slip-up' or an 'invitation to act', as the vice-chairman of the Justice Committee of the Chamber of Deputies Enrico Costa does, the short-circuit not only increases the distance between the government and the judiciary, but also triggers criticism from the opposition, which insists that the government has 'lied' and again asks Meloni to 'report to Parliament'.