Justice Undersecretary Andrea
Delmastro said on Wednesday evening he would go to train
"serenely" after his indictment by a preliminary hearings judge
in Rome for allegedly revealing classified information regarding
the case of jailed anarchist Alfredo Cospito.
"I did not expect the indictment, like the prosecutors who twice
asked for my acquittal. I will go to trial calmly," Delmastro
told the programme "Stasera Italia" on Rete 4.
The undersecretary, a member of Premier Giorgia Meloni's
Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, also said the situation is
"anomalous" in that he and the prosecution are on the same side.
Delmastro is accused of leaking information 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.
In July prosecutors had requested that the case against the
undersecretary be shelved but a judge said no and ordered them
to present an indictment request.
In the interview to Stasera Italia Delmastro insisted that he
had not violated secrecy.
"I did not give the papers to Donzelli. I answered a question, I
could not entrench myself behind a secrecy that did not exist,"
he said.
"I am extraordinarily proud of not having kept a fact of
unprecedented seriousness under wraps, namely that anarchist
terrorists in cahoots with mafia criminals attempted to make a
concentric attack on the 41 bis" hard prison regime, continued
Delmastro, adding that he would do it again.
"There is something that comes before all else: true service to
Italy, represented by the frontal attack on crime''.
In January 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. Justice Minister Carlo Nordio said that the
information was not classified.
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