Mitrokhin Commission
Commission set up by Silvio Berlusconi to investigate links between the KGB and his political opponents on the Italian left. In practice it was a smear operation.[1]
Contents
Romano Prodi
- Litvinenko had no compunction in recalling a piece of gossip he had been told by a former KGB deputy director as he fled Russia. In 2000, General Anatoly Trofimov had warned Litvinenko not to go to Rome since "Prodi is our man in Italy". He was referring to Romano Prodi, the former Italian prime minister who went on to become president of the European Commission.
- Now Litvinenko regurgitated the unfounded claim to Scaramella who persuaded him to write it down.[2]
On 29 March 2006, Litvinenko met UKIP MEP Gerard Batten at the Itsu restaurant in London. Four days later, with an Italian general election imminent, Batten called for an Inquiry into Prodi in the European Parliament. Prodi responded by threatening to sue Litvinenko and Scaramella. In the resulting controversy, Silvio Berlusconi was forced to wind up the Mitrokhin Commission, and Prodi won the election.[3]
The Imam Rapito Affair
Litvinenko, Scaramella and Evgeni Limarev met in Italy with Robert Seldon Lady, a CIA agent posted as a political officer to the US consulate in Milan. Lady was allegedly involved in the so-called Imam Rapito affair, the kidnapping of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr. The Mitrokhin Commission investigated allegations that the prosecutor in the case, Armando Spataro, had secret links to the KGB.[4]
Niger Uranium story
After the Italian press reported CIA involvement in producing the story that Saddam Hussein was sourcing uranium from Niger, the Mitrokhin Commission claimed the journalists involved were dupes of the FSB. [5]
People
Members
- Paolo Guzzanti - President.
- Andrea Papini - Vice-President.
- Giovanni Mongiello - Vice-President.
- Giampaolo Zancan - Secretary.
- Salvatore Meleleo - Secretary.
Senators:
- Giulio Andreotti
- Guglielmo Castagnetti
- Mario Cavallaro
- Amadeo Ciccanti
- Cinzia Dato
- Luciano Falcier
- Constantino Garraffa
- Mario Gasbarri
- Salvatore Lauro
- Loris Guiseppe Maconi
- Lucio Malan
- Luigi Marino
- Franco Mugnai
- Gianni Nieddu
- Ludovico Pace
- Piergiorgio Stiffoni
- Roberto Ulivi
Deputies
- Ferdinando Adornato
- Gabriele Albonetti
- Maurizio Bertucci
- Valter Bielli
- Francesco Carboni
- Fabrizio Cicchitto
- Giuseppe Cossiga
- Oliviero Diliberto
- Lino Duilio
- Giuseppe Fallica
- Vincenzo Fragala
- Pierfrancesco Emilio Romano Gamba
- Francesco Giordano
- Giuseppe Lezza
- Giuseppe Molinari
- Erminio Angelo Quartiani
- Enzo Raisi
- Giacomo Stucchi[6]
Consultants, contacts, and sources
- Mario Scaramella
- Alexander Litvinenko
- Evgeni Limarev
- Gianni Paolo Pelizzaro - a consultant to the Commission.
References
- ↑ The Secret Life of Mario Scaramella, by Alexander Stille, Slate, 11 December 2006.
- ↑ Why a spy was killed, by Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy, The Guardian, 26 January 2008.
- ↑ Why a spy was killed, by Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy, The Guardian, 26 January 2008.
- ↑ Why a spy was killed, by Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy, The Guardian, 26 January 2008.
- ↑ Why a spy was killed, by Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy, The Guardian, 26 January 2008.
- ↑ Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta concernente il "dossier Mitrokhin" e l'attività d'intelligence italiana, Italian Parliament, 7 May 2002.
