Carmine Pecorelli
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Carmine Pecorelli (September 14, 1928, Sessano del Molise - March 20, 1979) known as Mino, was an Italian "maverick journalist with excellent secret service contacts [1]", shot dead in Rome a year after Prime minister Aldo Moro's 1978 kidnap. According to him, Aldo Moro's kidnapping had been organised by a "lucid superpower" and was inspired by the "logic of Yalta". Pecorelli's name was on Licio Gelli's list of Propaganda Due masonic members, discovered in 1980 by the police. Former Prime minister Giulio Andreotti was condemned in 2002, along with Mafia boss Gaetano Badalamenti, to 24 years of prison for Pecorelli's assassination, before having the sentence overturned in 2004.
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[edit] Life
After his graduation in law, he started his career as a lawyer. He became Minister Fiorentino Sullo's head of press service, and thus initiated his career as a journalist. He founded the press agency Osservatorio Politico (OP), which quickly became a review, specialized in political scandals, and which published first-hand many stories which Pecorelli obtained thanks to numerous contacts in the state, including in secret services. Pecorelli often described with ease complex situations, and painted the situation and characters using, when need arose, pseudonyms. Thus, he painted the figure of General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa as "general Amen," explaining that it was him that, during Aldo Moro's kidnapping, had informed Interior Minister Francesco Cossiga of the localization of the cave where Moro was detained. In 1978, Pecorelli wrote that Dalla Chiesa was in danger and would be assassinated (Dalla Chiesa was murdered four years later).
After Aldo Moro's 1978 assassination, Mino Pecorelli published some confidential documents, mainly Moro's letters to his family. In a cryptic article published in May 1978, wrote The Guardian in May 2003, Pecorelli drew a connection between Gladio, NATO's stay-behind anti-communist organisation (which existence was publicly acknowledged by Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti in October 1990) and Moro's death. During his interrogation, Aldo Moro had referred to "NATO's anti-guerrilla activities." [1]
[edit] Assassination
Mino Pecorelli was shot in Prati's quarter in Rome by four gun shots. The ammunition was very specific, from Gevelot brand, a rare type of ammunition on the market (legal or not), but which was found in the Banda della Magliana 's weapon stock in the Health Minister's basement.
Investigations turned towards Massimo Carminati, member of the far-right organisation Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (NAR) and of the Banda della Magliana, head of Propaganda Due, Licio Gelli, Antonio Viezzer and Cristiano and Valerio Fioravanti.
Mafioso and pentito Tommaso Buscetta told on April 6, 1993 to Palermo's magistrates that he had learnt from his boss Gaetano Badalamenti that Pecorelli's assassination had been related to interests shared by Prime minister Giulio Andreotti. The Salvos brothers were also involved in the assassination. Buscetta testified that Gaetano Badalamenti told him it was the Salvo cousins who commissioned the murder as a favour to Andreotti. Andreotti feared Pecorelli was about to publish information that could have destroyed his political career.
In 1999 the Perugia Court acquitted Andreotti, his righthand man Claudio Vitalone (a former Foreign Trade Minister), Badalamenti and Giuseppe Calò, as well as the alleged killers Massimo Carminati, one of the founder of the NAR, and Michelangelo La Barbera.
On November 17, 2002, Andreotti and Badalamenti were condemned to 24 years of reclusion for Pecorelli's assassination. The sentence, however, was cancelled on October 30, 2003 by the Supreme Court of Cassation.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Moro's ghost haunts political life, Philip Willan in The Guardian, May 9, 2003
