The Rome Public Prosecutor's Office
on Thursday requested that the case against Justice
Undersecretary Andrea Delmastro for allegedly revealing
classified information regarding jailed anarchist Alfredo
Cospito be shelved.
The undersecretary, a member of Premier Giorgia Meloni's
rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, is accused of leaking
information that was potentially embarrassing to the opposition
about the Cospito case to his flat mate and fellow FdI member
Giovanni Donzelli, a member of the Copasir parliamentary
committee that oversees Italy's intelligence services, who
subsequently disclosed it in parliament.
The prosecutors had requested at the preliminary hearings stage
that the case against the undersecretary be shelved but a judge
said no and ordered them to present an indictment request.
In January 2023 Donzelli told parliament that Cospito, who was
on hunger strike at the time to protest against the 41 bis jail
regime he is being held under, had talked to mafia bosses about
getting the treatment abolished.
The jail regime is usually reserved for mafiosi.
Donzelli also revealed that four lawmakers from the centre-left
opposition Democratic Party (PD) had visited Cospito, who is
serving a combined 30-year sentence for the Fossano bombing in
which two Carabinieri were injured and for kneecapping a nuclear
company executive in 2012.
During the debate Donzelli asked whether the PD was on the side
of the State or that of the mafia and terrorists, sparking
indignation from the opposition.
Delmastro subsequently fuelled the row by saying that the PD
lawmakers had given in to Cospito's demand that they meet other
people being held under the 41 bis, including two mafia bosses,
as a condition for the encounter with him.
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