Intelligence Department Initiates Legal Action Against Italian Newspapers

Rome: The DIS department that coordinates Italy’s intelligence agencies announced on Wednesday that it is pursuing legal action against two newspapers, ‘Il Foglio’ and ‘L’Unit ‘, over articles it claims are “false and defamatory”.

According to Ansa News Agency, the department highlighted an article by Luca Gambardella in Il Foglio, published on Tuesday, which alleged that Giovanni Caravelli, the director of the AISE intelligence agency, recently traveled to Libya to inform the authorities about a list of Libyans wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Additionally, the DIS department addressed a piece by Piero Sansonetti in Wednesday’s edition of L’Unit . The article bore a headline stating “Almasri’s informer is the head of our 007s”, referring to Libyan judicial police chief Osama Almasri. Almasri was released on a technicality and flown home on a secret services plane two days following his January 19 arrest by Italian authorities on an ICC warrant for charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The DIS has stated that these reports are “totally groundless and seriously detrimental to the dignity of the Director of the Aise, prefect Giovanni Caravelli, and the institutional correctness and loyalty of the intelligence agencies”.