Giovanni Di Stefano (businessman)

Giovanni Di Stefano (born 1 July 1955) is an Italian businessman, notable through his involvement in various legal cases. Raised in the United Kingdom, but based in Italy, he has made a reputation claiming to act as lawyer for high-profile notorious defendants worldwide. He has been referred to as [1][2] "The Devil's Advocate".[nb 1] He was a business associate of Serbian paramilitary leader Arkan (Željko Ražnatović)[2][3] and appeared on CNN as part of the defence team in the trial of Saddam Hussein.[4][5] He has taken a considerable interest in football, and is a music producer.

Contents

Biography

Di Stefano was born in Petrella Tifernina near Campobasso in rural Southern Italy. When his father emigrated to England to work in a shoe factory, Giovanni and his mother followed later to Irchester, Northamptonshire when Giovanni was six years old.[1][6][7] He then went on to study at Wellingborough Grammar School (which later became Wrenn School)..[6][8][9] In his twenties, he earned a fortune importing videotapes from Hong Kong.[1][6] Despite living much of his early life in England, he considered himself an Italian.[10] During this time at school in England he was often called "John", the English for "Giovanni".[11][12][13]

Di Stefano lived in England until 1989. He then moved to several locations: Los Angeles between 1989 and 1992; Serbia from 1992 to 1999; and later, Italy from 1999 to present-day. Once in Yugoslavia, he then became a friend of its then-president Slobodan Milosevic who granted him Yugoslav nationality with a Yugoslavian passport.[8] Additionally, he became a spokesman, a business partner, and a personal legal representative of the Serbian warlord Arkan.[2][3][14] He also served as general in the Serb Volunteer Guard (Arkan's Tigers), although he never fought.[15]:2[16]

Legal career

Di Stefano has an office in Rome, the Studio Legale Internazionale.[17] He is well documented, for defending in the UK media, "some of the country's most notorious villains".[1] He once commented that he would "...defend Adolf Hitler or Satan."[1] He says he "defends the indefensible",[10][14] and his autobiography is called Defending the Indefensible.[18] When asked about his motivation, he replied, "No one's ever asked, 'Does Satan have a case? Does he have a good case?'"[10]

The Scotsman describes Di Stefano as a "colourful and often controversial lawyer";[19] The Guardian has called him "surely the only man in the world to claim the personal friendship of Saddam Hussein and the personal enmity of Delia Smith", after a failed bid to buy Norwich City F.C..[2]

Notable people

Notable people that Giovanni Di Stefano has claimed to represent include:

In 2002 he managed to overturn a manslaughter conviction against Hoogstraten, getting him released from prison.[36]

In 2003, Di Stefano secured the release of John "Goldfinger" Palmer from prison on a technicality, with only a fine of £33million for timeshare fraud.[36] which Palmer later avoided paying.[37]

In January 2004, Di Stefano again came to fame when he claimed to be acting for serial killer Harold Shipman in television interviews.[36] However, Shipman's lawyer says that Shipman had rejected Di Stefano's offer in May 2003, and that neither he nor any member of Shipman's family believed that Di Stefano was acting for Shipman.[17][38] This, and an incident in a 2004 trial of John Palmer, prompted an investigation into Di Stefano's qualifications as lawyer (see "personal legal history" section).[17][37][39]

On 17 March 2007, Di Stefano wrote to Lord Goldsmith (at that time the Attorney General for England and Wales) asking for leave to prosecute Judge Rauf Rashid Abd al-Rahman, who had sentenced Saddam Hussein, under the Geneva Conventions Act 1957.[40] On 14 January 2008, Di Stefano was reported as saying "Hurried justice is no justice", after a claimed UK client, who had won £1million in the National Lottery, failed to attend court as a witness in an assault case. Judge Christopher Elwen jailed her for 14 days anyway.[41]

In January 2007 Di Stefano asked the International Criminal Court to make a full investigation of the Al-Dujail trials of Saddam Hussein's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Iraq's judiciary head Awad Hamed al-Bandar.[42] Di Stefano circulated a note handwritten by Barzan where he explains that he wasn't responsible for the killings at Dujail for which he was sentenced to death.[42]

In October 2007 he complained that the investigation of Blackwater's civilian deaths on Iraq was unjust because they were forced to operate in a climate and conditions that forced them to shoot first and ask questions later when they came under attack.[43]

Also in October 2007 he argued that Iraqi officials had to accept a pardon application for Ali Hassan al-Majid (Chemical Ali) because the 30-day execution window set the trial had passed, otherwise it would be an illegal execution.[44][45] The US military later refused to release Ali for his execution until the legal questions were answered.[46] Ali was sentenced to death again on February 2008 for different charges.[47] The execution was further delayed on December 2008 as a new trial has been opened against him with further charges.[47]

In October 2007 Di Stefano asked the British Home Secretary for posthumous pardon of Hawley Harvey Crippen, who had been hanged for murder in 1910, on the basis of new forensic evidence indicating that the body found was not that of his wife, and a letter from his wife that was sent after the date of the alleged murder and was never presented on the trial, and that he never murdered her.[48][49] The request was filed on behalf of the doctor's last living relative.[49][50]

On 15 January 2008 Di Stefano said that he knew of a sixth victim of Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley called Jennifer Tighe.[51] who he said had disappeared after saying she was going to the cinema in Manchester on 30 December 1964.[52] He said he had a photo of her, and intended to speak to Brady to see if the killer would confess to this latest allegation.[53] On 21 January 2008 Greater Manchester Police (GMP) issued a statement saying that Jennifer Tighe was alive and that "Mr Di Stefano has previously made claims regarding the Moors murders in the media but has not provided any detail to Greater Manchester Police."[54] Di Stefano invited GMP to interview his client and to provide proper evidence that Tighe was still alive.[55]

Moors murderer Ian Brady has been force-fed at a top security hospital since he started a hunger strike on September 1999.[56] In September 2007, Brady applied via Di Stefano to be moved to a conventional jail where he intended to starve himself to death.[33] Later, on November 2008, when Brady was still being force-fed, Giovanni accused the state of legally starving Brady to death by not giving him enough food.[57] Di Stefano stated that Brady was bound to die in three months unless he is made to eat more.[57] In 2009-2010 Di Stefano made appeals to move him to a Scottish prison so he can die there, a move that the Scottish government strongly opposes.[58]

In September 2009, acting in the name of Manuel Noriega, Di Stefano presented an appeal to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, saying the ruling against Noriega had been incorrectly made in absentia.[59][nb 2]

In May 2010 he made an appeal on behalf of Benguit Omar, saying that he was wrongly convicted for the murder of Jong-Ok Shin.[61]

On January 2011 Di Stefano reported that he had asked for Charles Manson's permission to represent him, in an application to review his trial based upon a violation of the 6th Amendment and a legal argument that had not been raised during Manson's trial, although he had still to get his reply.[15] On the 26 January 2011 Di Stefano filed an application with the Inter American Commission on Human Rights on behalf of Manson claiming the same violations.

Personal legal history

Di Stefano was arrested in June 1984 and charged with fraud before being released on bail.[62] He was again arrested in August of that year and refused bail.[62] In 1986, Di Stefano was tried for conspiracy to obtain property by deception and fraudulent trading, and was convicted after a 78-day trial, jailed for five years, and prohibited from being a company director for 10 years;[6][62][63] of a total of 11 fraud counts, he was convicted of 3 counts and acquitted of 8. Court records show that Di Stefano's first attempt to appeal the conviction was dismissed in 1987[13][36] and further records published in 2005 show that he served the full sentence.[64] He also unsuccessfully appealed in 1989 to the European Commission of Human Rights alleging that his arrest violated the European Convention on Human Rights.[62] Di Stefano claimed in a BBC article that the conviction was quashed on a second appeal on 1988 and that "a sense of injustice remains, making each victory against the system a sweet revenge."[65]

According to The Guardian and the Irish Independent, he had already served a six-month sentence for fraud and false pretenses in 1975 in Ireland, and a three year sentence for obtaining property by deception and other charges in 1976 in the UK.[37][64] Di Stefano insists that these convictions were those of a different person, called "John" instead of "Giovanni", although they share the same surname, birthday and birthplace.[36][37] According to the NZ Herald, Di Stefano had already denied being the "John Di Stefano" who had been convicted in 1986, but, also according to the NZ Herald, the New Zealand police managed to verify that they were the same person by comparing his fingerprints.[11] Di Stefano denies that he was ever deported or that his fingerprints were ever taken.

In 1990 a Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal ruled that Di Stefano could not be employed by any British solicitor without permission from the Law Society,[6][36][37][38][38][63][64][66][67] although he could still contract a solicitor to act on his name.[67]

In 1990, Giovanni Di Stefano travelled to New Zealand, where he made several multi-million dollar bids on property on behalf of a Beverly Hills-based company.[11][68][69][70][71][72] The authorities discovered that he had not disclosed a conviction in England in 1986, declared him a prohibited immigrant, and he was subsequently returned to his country of origin.[11][12][71]

In 1991, he moved to Yugoslavia.[13][73] In November 2002 he received the Yugoslavian citizenship and passport by personal authorisation of President Slobodan Milošević.[73][74] According to The Scotsman and Irish Independent, Di Stefano was moving to a country with no extradition treaty with the UK, in order to escape a warrant for fraud charges.[13][73]

Around 1992, while trying to buy the MGM film studio, the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service deported him from the United States because of a fraud conviction in the UK in 1986.[13] Months later he applied for a non-immigrant visa for re-entry, and was told that he needed a waiver of grounds of inadmissibility to be eligible.[75] The waiver application was denied by the federal agency, causing the visa to also be denied.[75] In 1993 he appealed to a United States District Court, which ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to review the denial of a waiver application.[75] In 1995, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court, ruling that Di Stefano did not have standing to challenge the waiver denial under the Immigration and Nationality Act.[13][75] Di Stefano reports being able to enter the United States since then for limited periods of time through the Visa Waiver Program.

In November 1999 Di Stefano was arrested in Rome and extradited to Britain to be tried for fraud charges in the insolvency in 1991 of five hotels in the English Midlands and a company called Sandhurst Assets.[13][73] British investigators recognized his name when newspapers reported his bids for Dundee football club and for Ellington Colliery, and acted on a 1991 warrant.[73][76] In June 2001, after Di Stefano had spent 18 months in jail, a judge ruled that he couldn't be tried because too much time had passed since the alleged offences.[13][77] During his stay in Rebibbia prison, his friend Arkan was assassinated and his other friend Milošević was jailed shortly before he was released; Di Stefano claims that it was all part of a conspiracy to isolate Milošević from his most trusted adviser.[74]

In 2002 the Governor of HM Prison Belmarsh barred Di Stefano's access to a client in prison, Nicholas van Hoogstraten. The restriction was appealed to the High Court of Justice in R (Van Hoogstraten) v Governor of Belmarsh Prison[78][79] which ruled against the prison governor.[80][81] The decision held that the governor's challenge to Di Stefano's credentials was not filed in a timely manner, and that some evidence suggested Di Stefano was an Italian lawyer and that Italian lawyers, as a rule, were permitted visitation in British prisons as European lawyers. The justice further ruled that since denying Di Stefano's visits to the prisoner would cause severe prejudice to the client's legal defence, he could not be denied that right until a timely and successful challenge was made.[nb 3][83] In spite of these problems, he managed to release Hoogstraten from prison (see "notable people" section).[36] In November the Higher court made a different ruling for a different prison, this time saying that Di Stefano had failed to provide adequate credentials, and preventing him from visiting John Palmer in prison.[13]

On 15 January 2004, The Guardian reported[37] that Di Stefano's legal qualifications were under investigation by the British police and the Law Society.[17][84] Because of that investigation he was arrested in 2011 in Spain (see paragraph below). The Law Society declared that he was "not a solicitor, or a registered foreign lawyer, or a registered European lawyer",[85] and that they were unable to verify either his legal qualifications or his status as a foreign lawyer despite going to considerable lengths, and despite asking Di Stefano himself for the information.[37] The Law Society of Scotland[86] and the Ordine Degli Avvocati[38][66] of Rome have also said that he is not a registered solicitor. His name does not appear in Italy's national lawyers' register.[85] Di Stefano claims that he does not need to register with either the Law Society nor with any Italian bar association in order to practise in the UK.[37] As of 2004, Di Stefano could not represent his clients directly, and he had to represent them through Paul Martin & Co, a firm associated with his legal firm Studio Legale Internazionale that acts as his agent.[87]

In March 2006 Ireland Chief Justice Murray told Di Stefano that he would have to provide proof of his legal qualifications before he could act for Patrick 'Dutchy' Holland and be his legal representative,[88] and he eventually ruled that Di Stefano had failed to provide any credential.[89] Di Stefano sued Murray for the negative remarks made about him during the case,[90] but he later dropped his complaint, saying that he did not want to harm a "great jurist" just to win a case.[91]

Di Stefano was arrested in Palma, Majorca in Spain on 14 February 2011 on a European Arrest Warrant issued by the British authorities. According to the City of London Police, the warrant had been issued in January 2011 "on matters relating to fraud, theft and money laundering". The arrest was the outcome of a lengthy investigation by the City of London Police's economic crime directorate.[92] According to a statement by the Spanish Interior Ministry, quoting the arrest warrant, Di Stefano was accused of having earned large sums of money in the UK between 2004 and 2009 without being licensed to practise law in that country.[93] The ministry said that he was facing 18 charges for which he could receive a maximum 75 years in prison.[94] Di Stefano has voluntarily accepted his extradition to the UK, and he has been released without bail until the extradition date.[95] Di Stefano says that it is a political trial, prepared after he said that Tony Blair should be judged by his role in the Iraq war.[95] On the 25 August Westminster Magistrates' Court referred the case involving 18 charges of fraud to the Southwark Crown Court where a hearing is scheduled on 30 September.[96]

Other interests

Football

When he went back to Italy to the region of his birth, he bought the local team Campobasso Calcio,[14] although the club had to close a year later due to financial problems. In association with Arkan he purchased control of the Serbian second division football club FK Obilić;[97] within two seasons the club raised from the Serbian second division to a place in the UEFA Champions League, in the middle of accusations of threats, intimidations and match-fixing, which Di Stefano has always denied.[2][16][98][99] Di Stefano announced his intention to purchase Dundee F.C. in 1999, however his bid was rejected by Dundee's board after it was made public that he was friend of Serbian warlord Arkan, and that Suffolk police had issued an extradition warrant for fraud charges dating back to 1991.[13][97][100][101] In January 2001, Di Stefano announced his intention to purchase a 6% stake in Norwich City from its former vice-chairman Jimmy Jones.[102] These shares wouldn't give Di Stefano a seat of the board of directors, but he says that they allow him to sue the majority shareholders to get a seat or to buy more shares.[103] The club officials claim that the share transfer was never confirmed.[103]

In 2002, Di Stefano entered into talks to purchase a 60% stake in Northampton Town,[16] however Di Stefano's valuation of the club changed following an EGM, and the deal fell through.[104] Di Stefano approached the Dundee board again in 2003, and was appointed as a director on 7 August 2003.[97] Initially the club attracted big-name players such as Craig Burley and Fabrizio Ravanelli, but the club quickly ran into financial difficulties, 15 senior players were released from their contracts,[105] and Di Stefano resigned from the club in 22 January 2004.[106] In April 2005, he proclaimed an interest in investing approximately €1m in Irish football club Shelbourne,[107] but the club rejected his interest, citing his decision to let his intentions be known to the media first as the reason.[108] In April 2006, there were rumours about Di Stefano trying to buy Drogheda United F.C. and Waterford United F.C., but both clubs issued statements denying any contact.[109] In October 2007, Di Stefano announced through his website his renewed interest in taking control of Norwich City.[110] In February 2011 So Foot French magazine published an interview stating that Di Stefano was considering a bid with others to acquire a stake in AS Monaco and multi branding the football club with his record companies.

Music producer

In 2007, he produced and launched Seriously Single, an album by Italian singer JustCarmen that put a relatively unknown singer into the studio with recordings of big stars from the past. The album was a minor hit, selling 40,000 copies, but some of the duet tracks got 650,000 downloads.[111] In 2009 he produced and launched a second album by JustCarmen, I wish u love, which has two new duets with The Bachelors.[111][112]

His interest on music comes from his youth, when he played guitar themes and organised music events at his school house.[9] The Daily Star reported he had a single hit at age 15 in his native Italy.[113] He has also released in 2009 a CD with his own songs The Next Time.[114][115]

Founder of political party

In April 2004, Di Stefano founded a political party,[116] the Radical Party of Great Britain, by registering it at the Electoral Commission with himself as its leader,[117] but the party fielded no candidates in the 2005 general election, the 2008 London Assembly election, or the 2008 local elections. It reported no income, expenditure, assets or liabilities in 2006-2008.[118]

In a November 2007 interview with Dublin's Hot Press magazine's senior editor Jason O'Toole, Di Stefano expressed an interest in running in the Republic of Ireland in the European Union elections with an anti-immigration manifesto.[nb 4]

Around 1999-2002 he had been the secretary general of the "right wing but not fanatical" Partito Nazionale Italiano.[7][16][119] In 1999 he was also the foreign speaker of the Party of the Serbian Unit of his friend Arkan.[7]

Unconsummated offers to buy companies with financial problems

In 1993, on behalf of Sandhurst Assets, Di Stefano offered to buy Viajes Meliá, a Spanish travel agency owned by hotel chain Sol Meliá, just as another company had retracted its buy offer. The company was heavily in debt, and Di Stefano offered only $100, promising to put forward $350 million (4,000 million pesetas at that time) to pay the debts once he was the owner, and further $50 million (around 575 million pesetas) in investments.[120] Di Stefano was later arrested for fraud over dealings related to Sandhurst.[76]

In 1999 Di Stefano, conducting his business affairs from jail,[76] started negotiations to buy for £10 million the Ellington Colliery, a deep coal mine that was about to close, but he couldn't get the necessary permission from the Coal Authority.[76][121] He eventually lost interest in the deal by 2000, when his associate Arkan was murdered.[76]

Over the years, Di Stefano offered to buy several football clubs that had run into financial problems (see football section in this article).

Complaint against Wikipedia

On 2 July 2008, Irish magazine Hot Press reported Di Stefano's claim that he had lodged a formal complaint to the Rome Public Prosecutor alleging defamation committed against him by representatives of the Wikimedia Foundation and several editors who had edited the article about him.[63][122]

Notes

  1. ^ The sobriquet The Devil's advocate has been used by the European press to describe not only Giovanni Di Stefano but also Jacques Verges.
  2. ^ The appeal was rejected because Noriega has the right to request a new trial the moment he returns to France, and indults could only be awarded when a definitive ruling has been made.[60]
  3. ^ The right of a qualified European Union lawyer to practise in a country other than their country of origin was, until 1 July 2007, governed by the provisions of the (United Kingdom) European Communities (Services of Lawyers) Order 1978 (SI 1978/1910) (Amended 2004).[82]
  4. ^ "I'm going to run in Ireland in the European elections. You better believe it. I'm perfectly entitled in the European election to run in any EU state. You don't need to be resident or Irish. I will take my seat in Ireland because a lot of people will follow me. We are not a right-wing party. We may be radical in name but not in nature. One of the things we'll have to deal with, as a matter of urgency, is immigration. That is the key thing because otherwise you are going to dilute Irish blood to such an extent that you'll almost wish that Cromwell hadn't got ill!" -- Paid access. A free PDF version of the article is hosted at Di Stefano's website.

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External links