Caltanissetta. In a labyrinth of traces – bank dossiers, anomalies in some accounts, wiretapping fraud – inside which the prosecutors of Caltanissetta “follow the money” to demonstrate that the Montante system paid with black funds for the Crocetta election campaign in 2012, there are two lines of a certain weight. A witness, one of the few cited by the prosecution, recounts an interview with Antonello Montante. “He confided to me that he supported and financed Crocetta’s candidacy.” Far from bar chatter (despite the meeting in question took place at the “Charme” in Palermo on 29 July 2014), if only for the prestige of the “person informed of the facts”: the president of the Region.
The witness by Nello Musumeci, heard in Caltanissetta on May 27, 2019, is one of the no longer covered papers of the accusation against the criminal association led by the former leader of Confindustria Sicilia and composed, for various reasons, also by Rosario Crocetta. And the memory of Musumeci, that “confession” of Montante on the money for the former governor, although to be proved (the thesis of the Prosecutor is 200 thousand euros, the same amount would have been put by the king of waste, Giuseppe Catanzaro), is much more than a suggestion.
Stanza 405, on the fourth floor of the Nisseno court. The president speaks before the then prosecutor Amedeo Bertone, the adjunct (now regent) Gabriele Paci and the prosecutor Maurizio Bonaccorso, who summoned him exactly two months after the report of the regional anti-mafia on Montante. in which there are large excerpts from Musumeci’s audition. Who specifies his thesis to the magistrates: “I believe that the political director of what I have defined the magic circle is Senator Lumia, who even, speaking with staff on duty at Palazzo d’Orleans, has a room available in the same floor where Crocetta was, where he received people, even in substitution of the same ».
Between the governor and Beppe Lumia a subtle long-distance confrontation is being played in the Anti-Mafia: in a memorable face to face with President Claudio Fava, the former senator dem insinuates the doubt of a continuity “even in the first relations they had with the Musumeci government” of that “Confindustria subject direct representative politician “. The governor speaks instead of the “Lumia system”. And to the Nissen prosecutors he confides that in the magic circle there were the former deputy Marco Forzese, who “as president of the first institutional affairs commission had the task of giving opinions on the top appointments of the bodies controlled by the Region” and the lawyer Antonio Fiumefreddo , who “by exploiting his role as sole administrator of Riscossione Sicilia acquired fiscal information on political opponents in order to be able to denigrate them in the media or to be able to neutralize them”.
In Musumeci, in over two hours of confrontation, is asked to explain the nature of his relationship with Montante. Starting from the notes of the excel file (seized in the villa of Serradifalco) concerning him: in all seven “annotations”. And therefore, net of a first fleeting acquaintance in 2012 (the presentations at the airport are made by Adolfo Urso), the key meeting is in the summer of 2014. The prequel: Musumeci, from the opposition, “defends” Crocetta from an attack by Matteo Renzi. «Montante called me through the Region’s battery to congratulate him on the institutional style». They meet a few weeks later and the entrepreneur talks about Crocetta “but he was disappointed”. A choice, “made before knowing about my candidacy”, for which “the position taken by Casini, Bersani and Lumia was decisive, besides his own”, says Musumeci. But “he was keen to point out that Confindustria was not a party of the Democratic Party and invited me to meet the entrepreneurs”. There is also discussion of “personal events”.
And the former anti-mafia champion, remembers the governor, mentions him about the show The sprint of Calò (based on the novel about the life of Montante’s grandfather) scheduled at the Catania Stable. In a note seized it speaks of the “undecided son” of the governor. Montante “offered to offer the director an audition for my son, who was actually contacted by the director Di Pasquale, although I do not think the latter was contacted by Montante himself, because my son had already worked with Di Pasquale at the Building in Catania ».
The other meeting between the two is in August 2015, six months after the scoop of Republic on the Mafia investigation. Montante receives Musumeci at the Confindustria Sicilia headquarters, together with, among others, Alessandro Albanese, now president. “On that occasion – the governor recalls – I was also introduced to the director of Unicredit (the institution of which the governor was an employee, ed) to whom I anticipated a meeting to agree on a debt restructuring plan taken on for campaign expenses electoral and personal. Montante told me in an ironic tone to give up the director of Unicredit and that he would put me in contact with his trusted bank advisor, Dr. Livio Russo (quoted in another note, ed), which actually happened “.
At this point Musumeci opens with the magistrates: “Montante had the ability to present himself as the one who could solve any problem.” And, to argue the thesis, he cites two episodes. The first: “He also told me that, although I was in the opposition, if I needed the commissioner for productive activities, who at the time was Linda Vancheri, he was at my disposal”. The second: “He pointed out to me that I did not have a particular media prominence and proposed that I meet the director of Panorama, Giorgio Mulè (current Undersecretary of Defense, of Forza Italia, ed) for an interview, telling me that he was his cousin”.
Musumeci enters Palazzo d’Orléans at the end of 2017. And «in the first months» of the following year he met Montante for the «last time» in Viale dell’Astronomia. He finds it there, together with Catanzaro, when the then president of Confindustria, Vincenzo Boccia, receives the governor who sets out “the programmatic objective of obtaining the tax exemption of petroleum products” in Sicily. Shortly after, on May 14, 2018, the anti-mafia champion will be arrested.
Twitter: @MarioBarresi