ROME (ITALPRESS) – “On Jan. 18, 2025, the International Criminal Court issued an international arrest warrant for Almasri: the arrest warrant was executed by Digos in Turin on Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025, at 9:30 a.m. Informal news of the arrest was transmitted via email from an Interpol official to an executive in the Justice Affairs Department of our Ministry at 12:37 p.m. also on Sunday, January 19. It was an absolutely informal communication of a few lines, devoid of identifying data and without the measure in question and the underlying reasons: the extradition request was not even attached.” This was said by Justice Minister Carlo Nordio during the government’s urgent briefing on the expulsion of Libyan Almasri in the House Chamber.
“On January 20 at 12:40 p.m., the attorney general of Rome transmitted the correspondence to this minister: officially it arrived at the Ministry registered on January 20 at 12:40 p.m. Subsequently at 1:57 p.m. the Hague ambassador transmitted the request for provisional arrest of January 18, 2025 to the Ministry’s International Affairs Service of the Department of Justice Affairs,” Nordio explained. “It is worth noting so far that the communication from the Turin Police Headquarters was received by the Ministry when the arrest had already been made and therefore without the prior transmission of the request for arrest for extradition purposes issued by the ICC to the minister.
“The minister’s role is not simply that of a transit organ of the requests that come from the Court: he is not a paper-pusher, he is a political organ that has to ponder the content of these requests, with a view to possible contact with other ministries and other institutions and organs of the state,” the Guardasigilli stressed.
“The act came in English, without translation, and there were critical issues about the request for appeal. It was acknowledged that on Oct. 2, 2024, the prosecution had applied for an arrest warrant for crimes against humanity that occurred in Mitiga and were committed from February 2015, and there was absolute uncertainty about the date of the crimes committed: it ranged from 2011 to 2015, which is no small thing since it is a continuing crime,” said Nordio again, who then spoke of a “hasty bungling” regarding the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant on Almasri.
“It was the Court that corrected itself, it was not I who detected flaws. The Court detected them, they tried to change them five days later because they realized that they had made an immense mess,” the minister stressed. “The reason for this hasty mess will be discussed, will perhaps be found and will be suspected in other fora or in other situations. I don’t know why they acted in such a hasty way to completely botch such a solemn act as an international arrest warrant, however, it is my intention to activate the powers that the law gives me and ask the Criminal Court for justification about the inconsistencies.”
“I understand and respect of course the reasons of the opposition, which is doing its job, even aggressively. I understand the press, even though it has spread a whole series of fabricated and partly wrong news in recent days. What disappointed me a bit, although it was not unexpected, was the attitude of a certain part of the judiciary that dared to criticize the minister’s work without having read the papers,” Nordio said. To this part of the judiciary I would simply say that, also taking into account the sometimes somewhat too polemical precedents, that if this is their way of intervening in an imprudent and in some respects sloppy way,” or “if this is a system to make us believe that our reforms should be slowed down,” this “makes dialogue very difficult. The other day a magistrate somewhat ironically thanked the minister because he had finally compacted the judiciary. It is I who thank this part of the judiciary because it has compacted our majority. If in the beginning there were hesitations, today there are no more: we will go ahead to the end without hesitation and until the final reform.”
– IPA Agency Photos –
(ITALPRESS).
