Don't call it a trial, it's technically a Preliminary Hearing. The object of the dispute, however, is much more than a preventive judicial passage. The accusations, the powers in the field, the men under accusation, make the Council Chamber chaired by Judge Giuseppe Pintori a real high-ranking military event and more. It cannot be said, but the future military history of the country of Italy passes through the hearing room number one of the Court of Cagliari. First of all the checks and balances, those between the various organs of the State, Defense and Justice, its constitutionally recognized principles and those unspoken but always able to dictate the law. In those 13 folders of the investigation carried out with an arduous job by the Public Prosecutor of Cagliari and by the Public Prosecutor Emanuele Secci, with an unprecedented deployment of energy and means, there is not only the "unnamed" disaster that has swept the landscape, the environment and the nature of that proscenium that was enchanted by Teulada.
Much more than a process
There is so much more. In reality, until today this story has always been subtitled for those who did not see and did not want to see. Now, however, Alessandra Tedde, Judge for Preliminary Investigations, has written it. And it did so with a clarity that is ill-suited to a theme that has always been reserved for rubber walls and the silence of the state. His words, written in the ordinance with which the charge of the crime of "unnamed disaster" for the leaders of the Italian Defense, in office from 1 May 2010 to 1 September 2014, is the premise and fulcrum of what is not yet it can be called a process. In reality, however, the silent spotlights of the Palazzo in via XX Settembre, seat of the most armed ministry, are all projected onto the Court of Cagliari. At stake is an inviolable "impunity", never written in any law, but applied in fact as a state dogma. A sort of direction of the Palace that has sheltered Generals and military leaders from any judicial pitfall, starting from those concerning the environment and health, from that of the military to civilians, all involved in events that have shown the more denier face of the state. The heart of the investigation puts the age-old rule of secret rooms back to the wall: "you can't say". On page sixteen of the order of the Judge for Preliminary Investigations, the position of the Generals under investigation is addressed: contestation, the use of the peninsula (Delta) with explicit methods and implications, would have been put in place in order to be able to give an adequate response to the military commitments undertaken in the international context concerning the presence of the Italian forces in various theaters of war ». The blatant justification of the devastation of that strip of "rare beauty" like the coast of Teulada to fulfill a "superior" mission is already in itself a clear forcing, used as an excuse to protect all kinds of abuse and abuse in Sardinian land. And, in fact, the Judge writes it clearly: "Now, even assuming the existence of the rule or order that imposed the use of the Delta Peninsula as the target of every weapon system to be used for military training ( and also assuming the data, also in truth remained unproven, that there were no possible alternatives to the use of the site in question involving a lower sacrifice on the assets subject to protection, such as areas not adjacent to inhabited areas or pastures of the livestock), this does not imply that the carrying out of the activities should be exempt from all rules and regulations of precaution, attention and caution, or that, after its use, the area should not be subject to reclamation ". The concept expressed by the Judge is all too clear: if you had the mission of exercising this, it certainly could not have contemplated the devastation of the environment tout court.
Impunity invoked
Here is the crucial theme of the "trial" evoked by the investigating judge: "In this case, indeed, a question of the prevalence of one of the interests over the other (the one underlying the rule that requires compliance with respect to what is protected by the criminal law) which is what constitutes the basis of the excuse relied upon, since nothing leads to the belief that the values protected by the criminal offense necessarily had to be sacrificed up to their total compromise, to allow the performance of the well-known training activities of military personnel, which in fact could have been carried out, but in different ways ". In short, you could practice, but you could not and should not demolish with bombs, missiles, mortars, rockets and so on, a godsend like that stretch of coast, nestled among the wonderful unspoilt dunes of Porto Pino. And no one says that the peninsula was so "forbidden", because this, according to the Judge, "already implies the recognition of the voluntary nature of the criminal conduct, on the other hand there is no legally valid custom in the recognizable case, nor could it explain any exempt efficacy ". Therefore, the certainties of the military leaders are shaking. What they have always considered "unpunished", and not even prosecutable, is now before a judge, Giuseppe Pintori, who bears the weight of a titanic clash, the one between written laws and those of consolidated power, the transversal and silent one that it has always crossed the ganglia of the state, especially when it comes to defense, weapons, business linked to the military system capable of influencing politics and institutions.
The gotha trembles
And that the game is disruptive can be understood from the names that still resonate in a low voice in the national and international media. In Cagliari, in fact, there are leading international figures under accusation, with implications linked to the war assets in Ukraine and, above all, to military geopolitics, from war affairs to the assets of the European elite. Among all there is Claudio Graziano, called to answer for "unnamed disaster" in the proscenium of Teulada, for having been Chief of Staff of the Army from 2011 to 2015, or one who, according to what the judge writes, was able to decide.
The most powerful of all
It is he who covers the wider time span than the one under investigation. And he is the most powerful of all. In fact, since 2018, Graziano, after the post of Chief of Defense Staff, practically all weapons under his leadership, has been hired as President of the Military Committee of the European Union, the highest military body. A box considered marginal in the European chessboard in 2018, one of those considered second-rate, given that each State wanted to keep control of its defense firmly in hand. All up to that cursed February 24th, when, with the start of the war in Ukraine, history suddenly changed direction. Europe, displaced by the advance of old Russian tanks towards the West, had to rethink its strategy, up to the point of deploying for the first time an intervention force, or rather a buffer, of 5,000 men on the threshold of Poland and surroundings. However, Claudio Graziano, the Italian General accused in Cagliari of having caused, together with 4 other colleagues, that “unnamed” disaster in the proscenium of Teulada, has led this European military structure, still embryonic. The Sardinian judicial passage is therefore not of little consequence also because in the game of European assets that box has now become strategic, for war affairs and for the war industry, starting with the establishment of a real arsenal in head to Brussels. Arms manufacturers, governments, lobbies know that all this is power, to be managed and controlled. For this reason it is Draghi himself, attentive as never before to European assets, after yesterday's endorsement by John Biden in person who would like him to head the European strategy, to keep the name of Claudio on his desk, the most reserved one. Graziano. In fact, on May 16 next, the shareholders' meeting of the very powerful Fincantieri, the state warship factory, should designate Claudio Graziano as president, who would therefore leave the Italian box in Europe. The Cagliari trial crossroads is, therefore, in every sense a real beam placed across this military and business chessboard. In fact, not only is the umpteenth General at stake who leaves the use of weapons to go and produce them, but there is even a European box that Draghi's Italy would lose in Europe.
Dragons & boyars
Certainly for Italy in war affairs the opportunity is greedy: putting together the Atlantic vocation and the European war industry means governing, through Fincantieri, the "warmongering" process of the second millennium. The figure of Claudio Graziano in this scenario would be the most welcome on the "business-state" side, even if Draghi would lose one of the key positions among the European "boyars". Claudio Graziano's "companions" of judicial travel could not have had a more authoritative and powerful colleague at their side. In Cagliari, therefore, in the Palace of Justice, an "explosive" game is being played for the not only military and economic assets of the state war industry. At stake is the primacy of the right, that of trying the alleged culprits, of a disaster that has been ascertained and declared, documented and visible to anyone. The rules, written ones, criminal and not only, provide that those who destroy the environment and nature, endanger the life and health of men, must be prosecuted and punished. Whoever it is. In Italian law, until proven otherwise, there are no “unpunished” crimes and offenders. The dogma of state impunity, for now, belongs only to the chatter of the Palace. Until proven otherwise. For now, all postponed to 10 June.
