Italy – Rosario Leo’s fight continues

Rosario Leo continues his fight for justice against “il sistema”. Photo: FD/EJ CC-BY 2.0

(KL) – Last year, after a long investigation in Italy, Eurojournalist(e) published a long series called “European money for the mafia”. This series was about how “il sistema”, this “state within the state”, made up of politicians, magistrates, captains of industry and organised crime, had driven Rosario Leo, an entrepreneur from southern Italy, to ruin, together with other companies, simply by not paying his invoices for the construction of several gas pipelines. The material damage amounts to around 50 million euros, but despite the incredible length of the legal case, which has been fruitless for 30 years (!), Rosario Leo continues to fight. Now it is time for the next round.

It is a disgrace – Italy is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, the Italians are an incredibly friendly people, and yet in Italy not much works as it should. The reason for this is a thoroughly corrupt system in which the players of “il sistema” rule the country, where the current Meloni government with its Minister of Justice Carlo Nordio is currently trying to let the illegal machinations of “il sistema” go unpunished, for example by abolishing criminal offences such as abuse of office. The work of the law enforcement agencies against members of “il sistema”, such as telephone surveillance, should also no longer be possible for this group of people.

But “il sistema” is increasingly coming into the sights of the authorities, with the head of Europe’s largest public prosecutor’s office in Naples, Nicola Gratteri, for example, waging an increasingly fierce battle against organised crime and the corrupt players in “il sistema”. Rosario Leo is also waging his own personal battle against this system, which has ruined his thriving civil engineering business.

Last year, Rosario Leo submitted his case to the European authorities, to the new European Public Prosecutor’s Office in Luxembourg, where the procedure is still ongoing and has not progressed, to the European anti-corruption authority OLAF in Brussels, to EUROJUST in The Hague, the body responsible for coordinating the work of the judicial authorities in the EU Member States, to the European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders and of course to the Italian MEPs. But everywhere Rosario Leo encountered a wall of silence. Apparently, corruption in Italy is a well-known phenomenon to the European authorities and no action is being taken against it.

But even after 30 years of fighting against “il sistema”, Rosario Leo does not give up. On August 8, Rosario Leo filed a new complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Catanzaro, southern Italy, and is currently preparing the next wave of contacts with the European authorities. All Italian MEPs are once again confronted with this case, in which large companies with partial state involvement such as ENI spa. or SNAM spa. have repeatedly violated the anti-mafia law (Legge 55/1990), which the Italian judicial authorities have systematically swept under the carpet for the past three decades. The new Commissioner for Justice will also have to deal with this case and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office will also have to take a position in the ongoing procedure.

Our series will therefore continue in the fall, as we follow Rosario Leo’s struggle to solve this scandal, in the hope, of course, that this courageous man will eventually find justice.