Paolo Guzzanti
| Paolo Guzzanti | |
|---|---|
| Member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies from Rome | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office April 29, 2008 | |
| Italian Republic Senator from Latium | |
| In office April 28, 2006 – April 28, 2008 | |
| Italian Republic Senator from Lombardy | |
| In office May 30, 2001 – April 27, 2006 | |
| Constituency | Brescia |
| Personal details | |
| Born | August 1, 1940 Rome, Latium |
| Political party | Italian Liberal Party (2009-present) |
| Other political affiliations |
Italian Socialist Party (until 1994) Forza Italia (1994-2009) The People of Freedom (2009) |
| Residence | Rome, Latium |
| Occupation | Journalist |
Paolo Guzzanti (born 1 August 1940) is an Italian journalist and politician. He was previously a member of the Italian Socialist Party.
Biography
Born in Rome, he is the nephew of Elio Guzzanti and father to actors Corrado, Sabina and Caterina.
As a journalist he worked for L'Avanti!, La Repubblica (of which he was co-founder) and La Stampa. He also hosted the first season of TV show Chi l'ha visto?. Currently he is an editorialist of Paolo Berlusconi's Il Giornale (he was deputy director before and for Panorama, also owned by Berlusconi).
He was elected to the Italian Parliament for Forza Italia. From 2002 to 2006 he was president of the Mitrokhin Commission, a parliamentary commission which was entrusted with investigating the role of KGB in Italy. The commission, since the very beginning, received heavy criticism[1] as it was pointed out that its main role seemed only that to discredit the former Italian Communist Party. According to an interview of former KGB agent Yevgeny Limarev published on La Repubblica,[2] Italian left-winged politicians to be discredited included Romano Prodi, Massimo D'Alema and Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio. The commission was closed in 2006 without any concrete result given.
On 1 December 2006 Italian Mario Scaramella, a contact of dead former spy Alexander Litvinenko, tests positive for polonium-210. Mr Scaramella is involved in an Italian parliamentary inquiry into KGB activity and was sufficiently worried by the contents of an e-mail to ask for advice from Mr Litvinenko. The e-mail said that he, Mr Litvinenko and an Italian senator, Paolo Guzzanti, were possible targets for assassination.[3]
In 2009 Paolo Guzzanti published a book [4] where he stated that Litvinenko told the Mitrokhin Commission about a connection between Romano Prodi and Soviet KGB, post-Soviet FSB.[5] He believed that Litvinenko was killed because of Mitrokhin Commission and that Vladimir Putin had an interest in ruining the commission.
On 2 February 2009 he left People of Freedom and joined Italian liberal party. He was elected deputy secretary on 20 February.
References
- ↑ "Mitrokhin, un’arma contro Prodi". L'Unità. 1 December 2006. pp. 1, 3.
- ↑ Reuters, 28 November 2006
- ↑ "UK | Pair test positive for polonium". BBC News. 2006-12-01. Retrieved 2011-08-12.
- ↑ Guzzanti, Paolo (2009). Il mio agente Sasha. La Russia di Putin e l'Italia di Berlusconi ai tempi della seconda guerra fredda (in Italian). Aliberti. ISBN 978-88-7424-517-8.
- ↑ Anastasiya Kirilenko (23 November 2009). ""Мой агент Саша" Литвиненко" ["My agent Sasha" Livtinenko] (in Russian). Radio Liberty. Retrieved 2009-11-23. (interview with Paolo Guzzanti)
| Italian Senate | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Title jointly held |
Senator Legislatures XIV, XV 2001–2008 |
Succeeded by Title jointly held |
| Italian Chamber of Deputies | ||
| Preceded by Title jointly held |
Deputy Legislatures XVI 2008 – present |
Incumbent |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by Salvatore Grillo |
Deputy secretary of Italian liberal party 2009 – 2010 |
Succeeded by Enrico Musso |
|