An illegal wiretapping scandal in Italy widened on Tuesday with the arrest of four suspects in Milan in another case of illicit eavesdropping. Police arrested a policeman, a former Carabinieri police officer, a financier and a clerk at the public prosecutor's office in Milan on charges of computer hacking.
Raids were also carried out on the homes and workplaces of eight policemen and Carabinieri officers.
Judicial sources said the probe centred on a private investigation firm which had been gathering information illegally, in particular by breaking into the computer system of the Milan prosecutor's office. The arrests came less than a week after 21 people were detained in an investigation into a massive illegal bugging operation involving telecoms giant Telecom Italia and tyre group Pirelli, Telecom's parent company.
The arrested included former Telecom security chief Luciano Tavaroli; Pirelli security chief Pierguido Tezzi; the owner of a Florence-based private investigation firm Polis d'Istinto, Manuele Cipriani; and several police officers. The case sent shock waves through the political and business establishment when it emerged that the wiretapping ring had illegally amassed information on politicians and entrepreneurs, as well as media figures and ordinary Italians, although it is not yet known for what ends and for whom.
The government passed an emergency decree on Friday ordering the destruction of all the information gathered illegally by the bugging ring.
The decree includes heavy fines for publishing the contents of illegally taped conversations.
Cipriani, whose Polis d'Istinto has received tens of millions of euros from Pirelli and Telecom over the past few years, is known to have had regular contact with members of Italian military intelligence service SISMI, as did Tavaroli. Judicial sources said on Tuesday that SISMI No.2 Marco
Mancini was also under investigation.
The espionage chief is already being probed for his suspected involvement in the alleged CIA kidnapping of an Egyptian Muslim cleric and terror suspect, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar. Nasr, who was the imam of Milan's main mosque, disappeared mysteriously from Milan on February 17, 2003. He is currently being held in an Egyptian prison.
Prosecutors leading the wiretap probe also believe there could be a link with the death of TIM security director Adamo Bove who apparently committed suicide by throwing himself from a Naples motorway bridge last July. Interior Minister Giuliano Amato said in an interview published by the La Repubblica daily on Monday that Italian political and economic life could have been conditioned by the illicit wiretaps.
"Who knows how many decisions which were apparently the result of industrial or financial company strategy, were in fact the result of blackmail?" he said. "The private and business life of my country is the result of a history which no one can write - a contaminated history... Democracy has been attacked," he said.
But a row was brewing within government ranks over the fate of the illegal wiretap information.
Several members of Prodi's nine-party coalition, including prosecutor-turned-politician Antonio Di Pietro, argued that the destruction of the wiretaps could undermine the investigation into the bugging ring by eliminating evidence.
Magistrates made the same point, including Milan deputy chief prosecutor Corrado Carnevali who said the documents should be destroyed only after all investigations have been completed. But those in favour of immediate elimination, including Prodi and Justice Minister Clemente Mastella, expressed concern that the documents could be leaked to the detriment of the persons concerned.
They stressed that the information had been gathered illegally and as such should not be used.
Mastella denied on Saturday that unusual cross-party agreement on the decree and the haste were due to concern that the documents contained information potentially damaging to members of the political class.
