Dossier, how De Raho tries to block the hearings of Striano and Laudati –

Rita Cavallaro

September 21, 2024

The story of Federico Cafiero De Raho, the former prosecutor who ruled over the Anti-Mafia cesspit and who now tries to keep his investigated spies away from Palazzo San Macuto. As if it weren’t already embarrassing for the former head of the DNA to sit as vice president in the parliamentary commission that, for months now, has been investigating the dossier on Via Giulia, hatched by the financier Pasquale Striano and the former prosecutor Antonio Laudati, investigated in conjunction with the journalists of Domani for unauthorized access to databases and disclosure of secrets. A team of spies that, from 2018 to 2022, moved under the eyes of De Raho. Who swears that he never noticed that illegal activity that was taking place in the temple of legality, unlike his successor Giovanni Melillo, who instead pulled his hair out when he arrived on Via Giulia. And he has taken a crack at the SOS sieve, with guidelines so stringent that they have infuriated Striano, the commander who complained that he could no longer be a “great investigator” because of the new management. A circumstance that, at the very least, should make the former five-star prosecutor blush a lot, given that it would at least show how De Raho’s management has taken on water from all sides.

Instead, the former head of Via Giulia not only shows no embarrassment or sees a conflict of interest, but even, strong in his role as vice president of the Commission, tries to avoid Striano and Laudati being heard at Palazzo San Macuto, as the center-right would like, which intends to get to the bottom of the dossier. “It doesn’t seem appropriate to me that the commission should hear two suspects who availed themselves of the right to remain silent in front of the magistrate. Legitimate, of course. But if they refuse to answer to Cantone, who is in charge of the investigation and knows the inquiry inside out, there is no point in them coming here to Parliament,” De Raho told La Stampa, sparking a storm. A disconcerting statement, not only on a political level but also because it was made by a former magistrate, who, instead of urging Striano and Laudati to tell the truth, gives strength, and legitimacy, to the choice of the two spies to remain silent in front of the prosecutor Raffaele Cantone. It matters little that their decision to avail themselves of the right to remain silent dates back to last March and that, since then, the investigations have configured an accusatory system made up of serious evidence and findings contained in the 3,000 pages that arrived precisely at the Commission of which De Raho is deputy.

But the Five Star Movement member, just like the Democratic Party, which has never been touched by the dossier, does not seem to be willing to have in front of them the two people who could clarify the system of which the former leader claims to be a victim. Two people that De Raho knows well, because Striano worked with him already when he was prosecutor in Reggio Calabria and had arrested the then minister of the Berlusconi government, Claudio Scajola. And the other, Laudati, was his prosecutor who coordinated the work of the SOS, who claims to have “limited himself to delegating investigative insights to the DNA SOS group, in full compliance with the laws, service provisions and under the full control of the national Anti-Mafia and Anti-terrorism prosecutor”. Who at the time was precisely the current vice president De Raho. Author of a praise for Striano from the 5 Star category. “Pasquale Striano has demonstrated remarkable qualities of confidentiality and loyalty, a high and thorough technical-professional preparation, full availability and a high sense of duty, establishing excellent interpersonal relationships both with the magistrates of the office and with the remaining administrative staff and the Police forces”. And again. “He has played a fundamental role in the pre-investigative activities carried out by the aforementioned working group, detailed in the performance of delicate operational analyses in the sector of reports for operations to combat organized crime, allowing the same National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor to fully exercise the coordination and impulse functions assigned to him by law. Supported by a very high sense of duty and discipline…morally irreproachable, loyal and respectful…deserving of deep appreciation, convinced and unconditional praise”.