Berlusconi to Testify in Abu Omar Trial
This could be interesting. Nicolo Pollari–the right wing former head of Italian intelligence–is calling Silvio Berlusconi to testify as a defense witness in the Abu Omar rendition trial.
Berlusconi’s testimony had been requested by lawyers for Nicolo Pollari, a former intelligence chief who is one of the defendants in the case.
Pollari hopes the testimony might help prove that he was against the rendition, lawyers said. He could face from one to 10 years in jail if convicted.
Pollari has denied any involvement by Italian intelligence in the abduction.
Berlusconi, one of the United States’ close allies in its battle against terrorism, has expressed support for Pollari and has maintained his government was not informed about the operation and did not take part in it.
I haven’t followed the trial closely enough to know what Pollari intends to achieve. This could be a bid–similar to that of the AIPAC spying trial defendants–to provide the government with a big disincentive to continuing the trial (Pollari already tried a state secrets defense). Or it may be a bid to argue that, since the Italians were tracking Abu Omar themselves, they had no incentive to help the CIA in its rendition plans. (Here’s a NYT story reporting on Pollari getting charged.)
I just wish we could get eriposte to Italy to cross-examine Berlusconi about what he knew of Pollari’s involvement with American GWOT efforts. Pollari was, almost certainly, involved in the plot to propagate the Niger forgeries. He also should have informed Stephen Hadley that the aluminum tubes that the US claimed were nuclear centrifuge parts were clearly intended to support Iraqi reverse-engineering of Italian missiles; either he did, and Hadley proceeded to claim the tubes were for nukes anyway, or Pollari willfully let the Americans make claims he knew were false. In short, Nicolo Pollari has close ties to those Americans (people like Michael Ledeen) who were flogging this war from the start. And he did it, by most accounts, because Silvio wanted to curry favor with the Bush Administration.
I’m not sure we’ll get really astute questioning of Silvio Berlusconi’s knowledge of Pollari’s close ties with the most hawkish elements in America. But it would be fun if we did.
Isn’t it quaint how some countries still adhere to the rule of law?
I’m hopeful that something good or at least interesting will come out of this trial. It’s so much more than we can look forward to “over here”.
I am really disappointed that Berlusconi looks to be back in power. I really hoped we were rid of him. What’s with the Italians, anyway?
Bob in HI
it’s a warning to America
keep kicking the repuglitards LOOOOOOOOOOGN AFTER they’re DEAD
cuz they got a habit of not stayin dead
so kick those bastards in the balls EVERY DAY for the rest of your life
just to be sure
(they should put me in charge of training the young Democrats, dontchathink ???)
Berlusconi is probably way to the left of the left wing of the Democratic party. He’s a raving communist by Republican standards, he even SUPPORTS state run (single payer) health care!!!
I have a hard time squaring your characterization with that of Wikipedia:
Sounds to me more like a Fascist, and a soul-mate for Bush.
Bob in HI
Correct. Berlusconi supports state-run everything, as long as it is understood that the interests of the state are identical with the interests of large corporations (and that was how fascism was first defined by Mussolini, who knew what he was talking about on that score).
That kind of state-run healthcare system would be worlds apart from, eg, the wicked (actually very pallid) public system we have here in the frozen north, which we are still trying to keep out of corporatist hands, although we could lose at any time.
State-run does not automatically mean socialist, iow. It can just as easily mean far right, and in Berlusconi’s fantastical dreams, it certainly does.
Berlusconi is Italy’s Rupert Murdoch. A billionaire who own a myriad of companies, he is well to the right of anything American Democrats might propose, even though they are to the right of many right and center-right parties in Europe.
State-run healthcare systems are universal in western Europe, indeed, in the developed world outside the United States. Reasonable access to healthcare is considered a civil right. It is a feature, like police and fire services, that government has a duty to provide or superintend. It is not a function that can responsibly be left to depend on the vagaries of employment or income. That applies to pensions, too, heaven forfend.
Berlusconi acknowledges that expectation of the state’s responsibility as a necessary precondition to obtaining and maintaining political power. He may not agree with it, but he wouldn’t take on such things directly – he’d be considered foolish or deranged if he did so. He is neither; he just has bigger fish to fry.
well, you see, here’s the problem with that:
I’m an average American. In 2002, I didn’t get my news from the innertubes. I was as uninformed about refining uranium as anybody. And when I read the description of the tubes in question, I knew, beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty, that the tubes in question were ROCKET BODIES
I’ve never been in the military, and I’ve never fired a shot in anger
you’re trying to tell me Colin Powell never saw a fucking rocket before …
how dumb do you think I am ???
so that’s the problem with the “Aluminum Tubes” story
I don’t give a shit what anybody told anybody about the tubes
if the person was telling you those tubes were for refining uranium, that person was LYING
even the rubes knew that
Another interesting aspect of this story is that Pollari is calling Romano Prodi (outgoing Italian PM) to testify about “state secrecy”. What makes that interesting is that one of Pollari’s assistants was running an Italian domestic spying ring that targeted, among others, Romano Prodi.
Wow, when did Pollari ever find time to sleep?
Those clever Machiavellians… how do they find the time?!
All the crazy stuff that conspiracy theorists believe, in Italy, it’s all true.
it is NOT TRUE
the CIA doesn’t get caught
this “Italian” stuff is just to distract us from something bigger
I think they changed the formula for tinfoil
good thing I stocked up last year …
This message was sponsored by the Contrarian Conspiricy Theorist’s Union, Local 914 (like we’d tell you the real number)
Yes, we want you to THINK that we’re crazy, so you’ll assume that the wine we place in front of you does not contain iocane powder, when in fact, we’re so clever that it’s actually in the wine we put in front of us…
Although some say that our logic is ‘circular’, we know they’re just jealous of our dizzying, spin-spin-spin intellects.
(Sorry; couldn’t resist ;-))
Which almost certainly means it’s a bid to make Berlusconi so uncomfortable he’ll stop the trial. Observers have been wondering whether Berlusconi would dismiss it on his own accord since he got re-elected. THis gives him ample incentive.
Yeah, and what a shame it was so easy for them to flog it.
Kinda like what freep said.
BTW: Just over the news: Clement announces he’ll leave DoJ June 2. Now, it’s far too much to hope that his leaving so close in time to Alice Fisher’s is actually a shark fin. But one can still dream…
Who’s gonna take over the ‘we do not torture’ and ‘noooooooo, K-k-k-karl and Harriet can’t talk to Congress b/c they have Exec Privilege’ once Paul Clement leaves DoJ?
(Oh, nevermind; he’s surely taken care to leave plenty of minions in the wings…)
Do you have a link? That IS interesting. I’m fairly certain he was the guy Sid Blumenthal quoted as saying, “not everything we did was illegal.”
Apologies for the tardy response… so many browser windows today…
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/195065.php
Since it was at TPM, I assume it’s legit.
OT – Solicitor General Paul D. Clement submits his resignation, effective June 2.
I look to Italy to be among the first countries to bring charges against Bush, Cheney, Rumfeld, Gonzales, et al, once Bush steps down and is no longer covered by any Head of State protections. At the hearing held by Chairman Nadler several of the witnesses, including Dr. Sands, a noted expert on Pinochet and Torture, revealed that several Governments had asked for evidence and help in their investigations of this Admin. in regards to Torture and International Law.
I try to make a comment about the CIA trials every chance I get when making comments in National Newspapers. I do that because the Traditional Media refuses to report on it. The narrative across the web is that no one will be punished, including Bush. Greenwald, Balkin, and many others that progressive look up to have made this seem as the common wisdom stance, and I strongly disagree with that meme. It is up to us to make sure that justice is done. If not by us cleaning up our own mess, then I will gladly accept the help of Italy, Germany, France and anyone else willing to do it.
That was before the return of Berlusconi, whose new Government makes even Bush look reasnable and frighteningly, might be more competent.Check out Signor Fini’s lot.
And to Bob in Hi what happened to bring Berlusconi back was pretty comprehensive incompetence by the left under Prodi.
It’s happening here in Britain, assuming you can call New Labour of the Left,it’s almost as far right as the Blue Dogs.
And the Moon will turn to blue cheese bfore Berlusconi stands in a witness box on this.
Waaaay OT, but I gotta ask this group;
KKKarl is offering to testify ”on paper” but trying to refuse to go in person (http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/05/conyers_to_rove_no.php#more).
Any ideas why? Is this ”smart” guy not very fast on his feet, or is he afraid of that cell in the basement of the capital?
http://emptywheel.firedoglake……book-test/
Is this a new budget item, or is it part of the Gitmo funding?
If there was any more evidence needed that K-k-k-karl is a gutless, bullying, preening sh*t, this would be the Tipping Point.
Agree with SmileySam @13, who points out that the assumptions that Bush, et al will never be held accountable are not necessarily accurate.
Rove = hare.
Conyers = tortoise.
I do hope you’re right, but I am getting tired of waiting so long to see some motion in the tortoise.
Bob in HI
Agreed. Conyers seems to find nothing urgent. He seems content to keep the pot simmering until the next administration comes along, while possibly keeping Rove busy worrying about hearings during the latter part of this election cycle. Actually doing something? Doesn’t seem a priority.
Will that change with bigger Congressional majorities and a Democrat in the White House? I don’t think anybody knows. We should and it’s wrong that we don’t.
My Congressperson (Neil Abercrombie) has finally signed on to Wexler’s letter to Conyers asking for impeachment proceedings to begin. I have been badgering my poor congresscritter about impeachment action for more than a year, but at last he’s done this much. I’d love to see a youtube of Abercrombie taking on the Bushies for Constitutional mayhem, because his rants can equal Kennedy’s in passion and pointedness, but alas! I fear that no such youtubes exist.
Perhaps if enough Firepups got their congresscritters to sign this letter, Conyers might do something.
Bob in HI
oops clickable:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…..o.php#more
Folks in IT are west of the Bosporous, but have their own byzantine ways. Rarely do I follow happenings there, but found some articles describing Prodi then newly elected appointing Pollari to a senior office, but regretting it nearly instantly as Pollari seemed tainted by a scandal wiretapping 200 judges, kind of like a Manny Miranda correlate for the IT judiciary. I searched the aether for Laura Rozen, who is mother jone’s forreign correspondent, evidently, but encountered nil from her yet on these developments; probably there is a lot out there; maybe eriposte even could do some stringer work for mj in exchange for their paying his travel expenses to the scandalous trial in the rendition case. Needing to turn to more mundane onshore news in the US, withal, I encountered what seems to be a video of published programming including outtakes of a Feith interview, OT, but the heading looks like the interview was on a comedy television program; plus a newly available document set at ACLU from Camp Delta or some such, many MB pdfs, OT.
That was Feith’s attempt to pimp his book on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show”. It didn’t turn out like Dougie planned, but what ever does… Eminently worth watching. Stewart’s got more viewers for his slant on real political news than most, if not all, of the cable news talking heads.
I found this link to this blogger who has done a bunch of research on all the people that are going after Bushco for war crimes…all over the world. Quite impressive. They won’t be able to go anywhere…:
http://livefrankly.wordpress.c…..ar-crimes/
I don’t see it right off the bat in the post (sorry if it’s up there)…but when do you think Berlusconi’s testimony will happen?
The analog of extraordinary rendition is the Gulags where the Bush regime’s rendition victims end up. Following is an excerpt from Michiko Kakutani’s review of the book version of “Standard Operating Procedures”, our road to torture as public policy. The description is about Abu Ghraib prison. It could also apply to many of the renditions made to keep us safe, but only as defined by Marathon Man’s Dr. Szell:
(emph. added)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05…..8;ref=arts
That was a good review. It was a good-faith effort to lay out many of the things talked about here but not put together in the “news” section of the paper.
to know what Pollari intends to achieve
He’s basically been saying that Berlusconi is lying about not knowing anything about the rendition efforts and that there are documents that show both that Berlusconi did know about what was going on and also that show that Pollari objected. He wants to have Berlusconi testify about the existence/content of the documents from the reports I have seen.
http://africa.reuters.com/wire…..40283.html
And unlike here in the states, where it is the prosecutors with DOJ who rush to file “state secrets” protections for the criminals in the Executive Branch, as the Reuter’s piece notes the prosecutors (now if we had ONE Spataro anywhere in DOJ, wouldn’t it be different?) in Italy have pretty much facilitated Pollari’s requests to put the big bannanas on the stand.
I’m not sure that there will be any questioning on Ledeen et al, since the grounds for Berlusconi being called have nothing to do with the Niger forgeries and since US DOJ has had a lot of years to come up with one good man on that front and failed.
Read over chetnolian @ 14, and then think of the Rosen-Weissman trial. (And sorry: I’m way behind on that one — I don’t know whether anything has happened in the past year.)
When the defence in that trial demanded a long list of government witnesses who are very unlikely to appear or to be allowed to appear, weren’t people thinking that that had been arranged on purpose? To end in dismissal? Sorry: running on vague memories. But I think that chetnolian could be right, and that the Italian trial could be a similar drama.
26 – Gratuitious depravity committed at the solicitation of “lawyers” and “officers” and with the full phalanx of the military command, through Commander in Chief, and the Department of Justice, through it’s titular and actual leaders, all covering up and facilitating the crimes and then destroying evidence.
At least a few in JAG have spoken out.
Go back and look at the horrible torture killing of Dilawar and the response. Go look at the el-Masri kidnapping and torture and dumping and the flat RUSH of DOJ to cover up. Go look at the Arar kidnapping and torture with Thompson’s name right on the documents and the closure of ranks to further victimize Arar and his family while covering up for torturers. Go look at the fervor of Thompson, Comey, Philbin and Goldsmith in advocating for torture to be mainstreamed even more than it already has been, by adding Haynes to Bybee on the Circuit bench in lifetime appointments.
In the end it really wasn’t gratuitous. It’s how you cement the bonds of power -to make people so support despotic violence that they advocate for and promote unwarranted detention, human trafficking and torture on whims and without consequence – that ties them irrevocably to those who pull the torture strings.
It blows my mind that those men and women can go to bed every night knowing the victims that their actions and failure to act, advocacy and silence, have created and without a second thought. I truly cannot believe how low the system of justice in this country has fallen. When the prosecutors hear of men and women and children bought and kidnapped and tortured and their only questions are “how can we help cover it up and make sure no one gets charged”
So very sad.