This is a new qualitative leap and the content of the suspicions that the Minister of Defense Guido Crosetto harbors towards the secret services is becoming (at least in part) public knowledge. A few days ago it was revealed that the minister felt surrounded, the victim of a plot and that is why he had asked for the government's support. Which apparently reassured him. Until now it seemed that Crosetto's concerns were mainly focused on the suspicions of possible participation of secret service officials in the work under cover of files for which the former prosecutor of the National Anti-Mafia Directorate Antonio Laudati and the lieutenant of the Guards are currently under investigation. Today it appears that Crosetto's suspicions and enmities are more complex and deeper. This morning the Daily fact in fact, it published in its paper edition a summary of the report that the minister presented on 22 January 2024 before the prosecutor of Perugia, Raffaele Cantone. “Aise does not inform me and does not even cooperate,” complained Crosetto during that conversation. Today, the minister spoke of “the dangerous reconstruction of Do“, insinuating that the newspaper had distorted the information. This is why the newspaper edited by Marco Travaglio decided to publish (online) the full text of Corsetto's report. Here is what emerges.
The minutes
On January 22, 2024 in Rome, before the Canton prosecutor, Minister Crosetto explains why he is worried. The minister believes that the Aise, the Foreign Information and Security Agency, would not have informed him of important facts. Moreover. When he reports that he is the victim of a plot based on leaks reported in the newspaper Tomorrowspecifies that he does not really like the secret services. It is not a certain connection: just a reflection of the minister. At that time, two articles in the newspaper published by Carlo De Benedetti made his antennas explode. The one that tells of the interview aimed at hiring the minister's wife at the Aise in 2019-2020. The second rather concerns the house where the minister had been living for months without paying rent. “The events related to employment in the Services are covered by secrecy,” Crosetto emphasizes, addressing Cantone.
Investigations requested from the government
“It is not true that my wife did not pass the interview. In fact, on the contrary, she did not show up for the next interview to which she had been admitted also because of my opposition. My wife had participated in the interview because she had made a formal request via the Internet through the so-called “application“, explains Crosetto. Who then says that he also tried to contact the author of the article on Tomorrow: “When I told Tizian that this news was confidential, he gave no answer and obviously took care not to tell me who he had it from.” He had also discussed the publication and his concerns with the Undersecretary of the Council of Ministers Alfredo Mantovano, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and with the director of Aise Gianni Caravelli. He therefore asked for an investigation into the matter because he suspected that everything had come out of the intelligence community. In January 2024, Crosetto could not yet know the outcome of the government's ongoing investigations, which only a few days ago resulted in a negative opinion.
Relations with Aise
When Cantone asks him if he “is able to identify specific previous events that could allow us to hypothesize the possible acquisition of this confidential information”, or where the information that was leaked could have come from, Crosetto answers by evading the question a little: “I do not have specific information but my relations with Aise before were not particularly good because on several occasions I contested the lack of information from the Ministry of Defense that could also have created problems for the Ministry of Defense. national security”. A relationship that is deteriorating but which is not directly linked to a leak of information. In fact, the minister is cautious and then opens another precedent with the AISE: “I add, without wanting to make accusations against anyone, that I believe that someone could also have considered me responsible for the lack of confirmation in the management positions of public companies. and I am referring to someone who had roles within the AISE.”
Who is Crosetto referring to?
According to the DoThe (unfulfilled) expectations of confirmation of a top management in a public company would make Luciano Carta, former director of Aise, think. Carta in 2020, under the yellow-red government, became president of Leonardo but was not reconfirmed by Meloni. The position in 2023 in fact went to Stefano Pontecorvo.
Mantovano: “Services faithful to institutions”
After the publication of the report, the government immediately took measures to avoid further insinuations about the Aise. Undersecretary Mantovano communicated in an official note: “I thank General Gianni Caravelli and the men and women belonging to the Foreign Information and Security Agency, led by him for the extraordinary work done in the service of the Nation. It has contributed to raising the level of security and knowledge on the part of the Government of the many crisis scenarios. Aise's contribution is the result of great competence and loyalty to the institutions.” A way to relax your minds. He was then followed by the protagonist of the whole affair, Minister Crosetto: “The note from Undersecretary Mantovano, which reiterates his full confidence in the services and in particular in Aise and its leaders, was fully agreed between us.” And this is why he returns the ball to the file of the suspects Striano and Laudati to definitively eliminate the conflict with the services: “It is clear that the attempt of those who have built their fortune on inconsistent and transparent relationships between the pieces The State and some newspapers are annoyed by a politician who is not afraid to appear before the courts to express her concerns or collaborate by revealing facts. As I have already said, very few bad apples are not enough to undermine the institutions with which I collaborate every day to defend our Republic and our institutions.”
Copasir Lighthouse
The case, however, remains full of dark aspects, and not very reassuring if we consider the shadows on the relations between the Minister of Defense and the secret services. It is no coincidence that, during the day, it emerged that the Parliamentary Commission for the Security of the Republic (Copasir) “will deal with the Crosetto-Aise case, with a series of hearings to be planned.”
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