Do You Remember the Hungarian Lodge?
Ah, the Hungarian Lodge! No, not the place where you try to remember your passwords after a few too many *palinka* shots! We’re diving into the mysterious world of secret associations and slander, folks! It’s like the worst episode of *Scooby-Doo* where they never quite catch the villain, and instead just get dragged into a legal quagmire!
The Dastardly Details
Let’s talk about the association known as “paramassonica” — which sounds like a trendy new energy drink! Its aim? Piloting processes to appoint top-notch officials, including judges and police officers. It’s like an all-star game, but instead of scoring goals, they’re apparently scoring positions. And then there’s our main character, Eni-Nigeria case, prosecutors De Pasquale and Spadaro convicted. “They hid evidence” –”>Piero Amara, the former external lawyer for Eni, who spills what could be the most dramatic tea since the Boston Tea Party. Except in this case, it’s less about independence and more about, well… judicial independence going *up in smoke*!
Prosecutor’s Office: More Confusion Than Clarity
The Perugia prosecutor’s office, which one might think would be the hero here, simply decided to close the case due to a “lack of suitable elements.” In less formal terms — they just couldn’t be bothered! It’s like trying to find that missing sock; sometimes, it’s just easier to leave it be. They concluded that Amara’s claims were more about his own interests rather than some grand conspiracy involving a secret lodge. Talk about spinning a yarn! And who knew that “incomplete attempts” to interfere in the appointments were such a hot cake? Someone pass the gossip, please!
A Slanderous Affair
After this quirky ruling, the drama escalated! Amara found himself in the hot seat over slander, having named nearly seventy individuals as part of this so-called lodge. Just think about it: that’s more names than at a *Star Wars* convention! And what does the Milan prosecutor do? They decide to send this hot potato to Brescia! It’s like a game of judicial hot potato where everyone’s afraid to actually touch it for too long!
Plot Twists and Indictments
Just when you think it couldn’t get any more convoluted, in comes Judge Cesare Bonamartini, acting like the unwitting protagonist of a thriller, who ordered Amara’s indictment. Yes, slander was the charge, but shockingly, the non-existence of this lodge didn’t matter! Talk about plot armor! It seems the only thing that mattered was if Amara was doing a tap dance around the truth and nearly tripping over his own lies!
Bring in the Big Guns!
And now, in a move that makes the rest of us question our sanity, we find out that the whole thing will be starting from scratch in Brescia! It’s like hitting the reset button on the most drawn-out Netflix series, and I’m afraid there are no cliffhangers here; just a lot of paperwork! Meanwhile, Judge Guido Salvini is defending his decisions like he’s on trial for his life. Honestly, it’s a level of drama that could only lead to a riveting courtroom series — *Law & Order: Italian Edition*, anyone?
The Grand Finale
As we wrap up this convoluted tale, it’s important to remember that it’s not just the soap opera antics of magistrates that take center stage. The serious implications of this saga cannot be understated. After all, Piercamillo Davigo, the former head of the ANM (which sounds like a rock band from the ‘80s), faced criminal conviction for revealing details from Amara’s testimony. Talk about a scandal that brings new meaning to the phrase “disclosure practices”!
Conclusion: What Have We Learned?
In the end, it seems the saga of the Hungarian Lodge has taught us a few valuable lessons: trust no one, especially if they start naming names; sometimes, it’s all a case of mistaken identities; and above all, if you find yourself embroiled in judicial drama, always have your story straight. It’s wild out there, and if there’s anything to take away from this rollercoaster ride, it’s that the truth can be stranger than fiction — just ask Amara!
Do you remember the Hungarian Lodge? The association “paramassonica” with the aim of piloting the processes and appointments to the CSM revealed by Eni’s former external lawyer Piero Amara and which would have included magistrates, professionals, senior officers of the Carabinieri and the financial police, and state managers? The investigation ended in vain the Perugia prosecutor’s officea judicial office now responsible for the most important judicial investigations of recent times, had closed the case deeming «the lack of suitable elements to complete the secret association foreseen by the Anselmi law of 1982».
The “completed or incomplete attempts to interfere with the appointments of the heads of bodies and institutions”, one could read in the provision, were “results attributable to direct interests of Amara, rather than the consequence of the conditioning of a “lodge””.
Following this ruling, a Milano proceedings had been initiated against Amara, who was held responsible for slander against around seventy individuals whose names he had mentioned as belonging to the lodge. The Milanese prosecutor Claudio Civardi, owner of the file, had therefore decided to send the judge’s position to Brescia Claudio Galoppi who, after having been at the CSM and for four years at Palazzo Madama as advisor to the president of the Senate Elisabetta Casellati, in the meantime he had returned to duty in Milan at the Court of Appeal. The Brescian colleagues, having received the excerpt, had asked to archive Amara on the assumption that having indicated Galoppi among the members of the lodge without however attributing anything else to him, was not in itself sufficient to complete the slander.
The investigating judge from Brescia Cesare Bonamartini, accepting Galoppi’s opposition this summer, he had however rejected the dismissal and ordered the compulsory indictment of Amara since for slander, a crime of danger, the non-found existence of the lodge did not count in the outcome of the investigations, but the diversion of judicial activity by Amara himself.
Last week, at the resumption of the Milanese hearing, the objection from Amara’s defender, the lawyer Salvino Mondello, and then the decision of the panel chaired by Antonella Bertoja to send everything to Brescia, where the trial will start from scratch, with inevitable prescription since the story of the former Eni lawyer took place in December 2019. The former judge is now in the crosshairs Guido Salvini, which he wanted to hold in Milan for trial. “My decision at the end of the preliminary hearing in December 2023 to keep the trial in Milan was completely correct,” commented Salvini. «There was no connection – he added – with hearings underway in Brescia for the simple fact that there were none: at the time, in fact, the Brescia prosecutor’s office had asked for the filing of the file which saw judge Galoppi who had returned to duty in Milan as an offended person, whose complaint had been sent to Brescia . However, Galoppi subsequently successfully challenged the dismissal, obtaining the indictment from the preliminary hearing judge as a victim of slander. From this, with the promotion of a new criminal action, a possible connection was born which led to the moving of the entire proceeding, including the “mother” one, to Brescia. A procedural event, however, which occurred at the conclusion of my preliminary hearing which in an entirely correct manner had maintained the Milan trial”, Salvini finally clarified.
Thus ends a story that has occupied the front pages of newspapers for years and which led to the criminal conviction of several magistrates. First of all the former president of the ANM Piercamillo Davigo who had received the minutes of Amara’s statements from the prosecutor Paolo Storari, who had complained about the inertia of his leaders in carrying out investigations into the lodge, and had revealed its contents despite being covered by secrecy.
