Almasri case: this is Giusi Bartolozzi, chief of staff to the Minister of Justice

Giusi Bartolozzi, chief of staff to Justice Minister Carlo Nordio, is at the centre of controversy following her alleged involvement in the Almasri case. Bartolozzi, born in Gela in 1969, qualified as a lawyer in 1996 and, three years later, passed the competition for the judiciary. After a stint at the Rome Bar, she returned to Gela as a judge in civil and criminal cases. In 2009, she moved to Palermo, where she performed the same duties until 2013, when she was appointed to the Rome Court of Appeal. She is married to Gaetano Armao, former Vice-President of the Sicilian Regional Council. In 2018 she was elected deputy with Forza Italia; in 2022 she will not run again. Following the centre-right's victory in the general election, she joined the Cabinet of the Ministry of Justice as deputy chief of cabinet, a post she held until February 2024, when she succeeded Alberto Rizzo as chief of cabinet.

"All his actions were in execution of my orders". The Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio, does not mince words and personally intervenes to reiterate his total confidence in the head of the cabinet, Giusi Bartolozzi, who has been heavily implicated by the Court of Ministers in the document in which he urges Parliament to authorise the prosecution of the same Guardasigilli, the Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, and the undersecretary to the Prime Minister, Alfredo Mantovano, in the affair linked to the failure to arrest and repatriation of Libyan General Almasri.

The minister's words come at the same time that the government is considering possible ways to extend the shield of immunity also to the close collaborators of the ministers involved in the affair. Nordio, however, assumes "political and legal responsibility" for what happened last January after the detention in Turin of the Libyan general accused by the International Criminal Court of crimes against humanity. According to Professor Gaetano Azzariti, a constitutionalist at Rome's La Sapienza University, the immunity envisaged for parliamentarians and members of the government could also be extended to the chief of staff at the Ministry of Justice, Giusi Bartolozzi, in the event that she was investigated in concurrence for the Almasri affair. The professor explains: 'According to Article 4 of Law 219 of 1989, which provides that Parliament can extend the denial of prosecution to persons 'in concurrence' as well, taking direct responsibility for a politically non-neutral act. In fact, it is a matter of extending a prerogative reserved for members of the government to persons, neither parliamentarians nor members of the executive, investigated for the same crime, who, in principle, should be subject to ordinary jurisdiction'.

Osama al-Maṣrī Nağīm, a Libyan general accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC), was arrested in Turin on 19 January 2025 following an international warrant. Two days later, on 21 January, he was released by the Rome Court of Appeal due to a procedural flaw linked to a lack of communication with the Ministry of Justice, and immediately deported on a state flight to Libya. The affair provoked strong reactions, with criticism of the government by the opposition and the opening of an investigation involving Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ministers Matteo Piantedosi and Carlo Nordio. The affair was at the centre of a heated parliamentary debate and led to the presentation of a motion of no-confidence against the Minister of Justice.