There is a material error in the public prosecutors’ application for the transcription of 1,300 tapped phone conversations for the Rubygate scandal trial, which involves charges of complicity in the prostitution of 32 young women with the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

On 11 May, the public prosecutor’s office had sought to save time before a possible trial of first instance by asking the magistrate for the preliminary hearing to make available complete transcriptions of the 1,300 phone calls recorded. However Preliminary magistrate Maria Grazia Domanico objected, that the application by public prosecutors Ilda Boccassini, Pietro Forno and Santonio Sangermano contains a “material error”. The application cannot be granted with the procedure proposed by the public prosecutors. Ms Domanico also maintains that transcription cannot be begin at once, as the public prosecutors have requested, because the issue should be discussed in court with the lawyers of the three defendants, and should be postponed at least until, or even after, the preliminary hearing.

Rubygate Scandal Berlusconi Has more time to defend himself after delay

The ruling, although brief, reveals grounds of two distinct types. The first is that while complete transcription is a purely technical operation, generally requested during hearings by the defence, which has no evidential value but which can take two or three consultants several months, the prosecutors in fact applied on the basis of the second paragraph of article 392. This refers to reconstructions and gives prosecutors and defence lawyers the faculty of “requesting an expert opinion which, if ordered during hearings, could cause a suspension of proceedings for more than 60 days”. Ms Domanico notes that this should be considered “a solely material error” since the appropriate regulatory reference should have been to the seventh paragraph of article 268, which disciplines electronic eavesdropping. This lays down that “the magistrate shall order the entire transcription of recordings in compliance with the forms, conditions and guarantees laid down for completion of expert opinions”.

The second reason has more to do with expediency. In trials involving requests for indictment of dozens or hundreds of individuals – for example, public prosecutors Boccassini’s recent mass investigations of ’Ndrangheta gangsters – it is common practice in the interests of economy and speed of proceedings for transcriptions to be made long before the hearings in court, or even before the preliminary hearing, as it is a foregone conclusion that the some of those indicted will be sent for trial. Having the transcripts to hand saves the court a lot of time. But with only three defendants and a hearing in less than a month’s time, it cannot be ruled out that there will be an acquittal or an application for another form of trial, both of which would render transcription in advance pointless.

Rubygate scandal shakes Italy

On Wednesday, despite a schedule that appeared full until October, the Constitutional Court set 6 July as the date for its ruling on the admissibility of a conflict of attribution of organs of the state raised against the court of Milan by the Chamber of Deputies, which claims that jurisdiction for charges of abuse of power and under-age prostitution involving the prime minister Berlusconi on Rubygate belongs to the ministers’ tribunal and not the court of Milan. One of the reasons why the appeal was upheld was that Mr Berlusconi was presumed to have acted in the exercise of his prime ministerial functions to safeguard international relations when on 27 May he telephoned the police headquarters in Milan (“whether or not his belief was well-founded”, said the majority) to say that Karima El Mahroug was the then Egyptian president’s niece . There was no such family relationship. “But the appeal makes no reference to this comment. Evidently, offhand remarks made in Parliament cannot be included in official written reports because they would embarrass the institutions themselves. By imposing this false truth, the majority has demeaned the Chamber of Deputies”, said the Democratic Party (PD) group leader on the board for authorisations to proceed, Marilena Samperi.

 

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