Today I said omigod it looks like La Repubblica has done something right for a change. I wasn't
criticizing Italies largest circulation newspaper in particular. I should have said that I am amazed that 2 Italian journalists managed a good bit of investigative reporting. The best point is that their
strong accusations against Enzo Trantino (president of the commissione Telekom Serbia) and Carlo Taormina(currently resigning from the commissione and from parliament and suing La Repubblica) are largely basedon contrasting their claims with the public transcript of the hearing which is available on the web.

for some reason the URL given in the article is www.parlamento.it from which a good bit of clicking is
needed. For English reading Italians I provide a slightly more direct link.


http://www.camera.it/_bicamerali/nochiosco.asp?pagina=/_bicamerali/leg14/telecom/home.htm

then click on resoconti
then click on Gen 2003 in the index/calender to the left of the page
then click on "stenografico" under Seduta di martedi 14 gennaio 2003
then click on a button with a right pointing triangle 4 times until
page 25 audizione dell'avvocato Fabrizio Paoletti appears

As claimed by Bonni and D'Avanzo in La Republicca 26 Sept 2003 the name Marini, Igor appears first
in a question posed by Enzo Trantino
PRESIDENTE. Lei conosce Marini Igor?
and not in a statement by Fabrizio Paoletti. This is, as noted by Bonni and D'Avanzo, in contrast
with a later claim by Trantino.

Again as claimed by Bonni and D'Avanzo Trantino asked Paoletti if he was acquainted with
people on a long list including D'Andria, Renato, Rubolino, Giorgio and Salvatore and Nicolo Spinello

and also

Volpe, Antonio; ; Mortera, Mario; Corloni Flavia; Pascucci, Vittorio; Marciano Ercolino, Vincenzo;
Romano Melchiore; Verzella, Luigi Goffredo; Ambrosio, Francesco, Strauber, Roland; Rubolino Giorgio;Maslovic, Ducilio; Fox; Conte Vitali; Dimitriejevic, Srdja; Jacob Zaglina and Judeni Gaddani.

This does contrast markedly with Trantino's claim that Paoletti led him towards the alleged bribe of
leaders of the current opposition. One might almost think he had something in mind when he began
questioning Trantino.

Carlo Taormino did indeed ask Paoletti if he knew someone named Pintus and if he knew the Nicaraguan ambassador to the Vatican. However, if he sues La Repubblica he might point out that his question was CARLO TAORMINA. Conosce Pintus? not "conosce tale Curio Pintus" and that the currently posted transcript does not quote him asking "conosce Robelo ambasciatore del Nicaragua in Vaticano" which Bonni and D'Avanzo describe as a mistake,
since the Nicaraguan ambassador in the Vatican is, of course, named Robledo. In fact the
exchange (as reported on the web page) is as follows

CARLO TAORMINA. Conosce Ropledo?

FABRIZIO PAOLETTI. Chi?

CARLO TAORMINA. Ropledo, ambasciatore del Nicaragua in Vaticano.

Now it remains to this day entirely mysterious why the dimessionando onorevole Taormina thought that a committee investigating the purchase of 29% of Telekom Serbia should know if a Roman lawyer accused in an anonymous letter of having some involvement in dishonest side deals knew the Nicaraguan ambassador to the Vatican, but there is no evidence on the web site that Carlo Taormina got the name of the ambassador wrong.

One odd thing in the article is that in the list of names, Trantino is quoted only for the surname and given name. The rule of style that reptitions are to be avoided means that his monotonous questions are paraphrased (not in quotation marks). To me this is odd. When I see two words in quotation marks in a sentence which is largely not in quotation
marks I automatically suspect that a meaning has been distorted by removal of the context. Reading the transcript, I agree with Bonni and D'Avanzo that Trantino had some source of (mis)information other than Paoletti and that he was questioning Paoletti with a theory in mind. This would be important if he later attempted to imply that Paoletti had led the committee to it's later misadventures with Marini. This depends on a claim which Trantino is alleged to have made after January 14. Actually I trust Bonni and D'Avanzo but I am amazed that a desire
to improve the style of Trantino would lead them to quote in bits and pieces and cast doubt on all of their quotes.

Still I sure wish I had written that article.