If I am reading this right, it looks like Libero deputy editor Renato Farina -- Sismi codename Betulla, "birch tree" -- did take about $10,000 dollars in Euro payment from Sismi. As Repubblica's Carlo Bonini goes through the bank deposit receipts to Betulla (and don't trust my translation too much), he comments, "the vice director of Libero does not do this work for free." The receipts were seized by Italy's Digos in a search earlier this week of an address at Rome's 230 via Nazionale, the mysterious apartment rented by the Sismi director's press advisor Pio Pompa for disinformation and domestic spying operations.

("Cominciamo da due ricevute di pagamento. La prima da 2.500 euro, la seconda da 5.000. Nella firma in calce ai due foglietti, una sigla leggibile: 'Betulla'. Quando si muove, il vicedirettore di 'Libero' non lo fa gratis. Anche per questo, le richieste che arrivano dal Direttore attraverso Pompa sono perentorie. Anche per questo le informazioni che 'Betulla' gira a via Nazionale sono tempestive, sollecite.")

Given some of Farina's other reporting, the extent of his relationship with Sismi is fascinating.

Update: Crooked Timber's and George Washington University's Henry Farrell provides a summary of the Repubblica/Bonini article referenced above:

First paragraphs - a lot of filler about [Sismi director Nicolo Pollari's press advisor] Pio Pompa’s background. The key point that the journalists want to establish is that he was Nicolo Pollari’s man. Pollari had brought him into SISMI proper (he had previously been a consultant and a contract professor at the university of Teramo, which I’ve never heard of). The only person who he spoke to on a daily basis in Fort Braschi was Pollari. While he had taken orders at one point from [arrested Sismi #2 Marco] Mancini, after Mancini’s disgrace he reported solely to the Director (Pollari) and on a regular basis. He reported to Pollari on May 23 that Betulla [the Sismi code name for Libero deputy director Renato Farina] had gone to Milan to be interviewed by the magistrates Monarici and Spataro who were working on the Abu Omar case.

He gave an update the same evening to Pollari, and obtained a list from Pollari of the journalists to meet in his office, or in a restaurant for lunch. These were for innocent geostrategic analyses, or for manipulated information to be used in disinformation campaigns.

There was paper everywhere - newspapers, printed paper, annotated manuscripts, working notes, accounts. The Digos (special police) took fifteen hours to take dozens of boxes of “material of information” in their raid. It will take weeks to figure it out, but two things leap out.

We can begin with two receipts for payment. The first was for 2,500 euro, the second for 5,000. In the carbon copy signatures on the two pieces of paper, there is a readable signature: “Betulla.” When he does something, the vice-editor of “Libero” doesn’t do it for free.

Furthermore, the requests that arrived at the Director through Pompa were peremptory. And to boot, the information that Betulla sent to Via Nazionale was timely and prompt. The last was some weeks ago. Spataro had left Milan to go directly to New York for a conference organized by New York University. For “Betulla,” who didn’t know anything about what was happening, neither that his phone was tapped nor that the arrest warrants for Mancini and Pignero were under review by GIP, this was a signal that the inquiry “was closed.” “Betulla” reported it, Pompa annotated it, Pollari was informed.”

The method was always the same, and there is a paper trail for everything. The testimony of “Betulla” to the magistrates provoked hilarity - Betulla pretended not to know who Abu Omar was. Pompa received a written account of the meeting, as well as something from the editor of Libero, Claudio Antonelli. By May 24, the two pieces of paper were in Via Nazionale.

During the examination, a personal dossier on Edmondo Bruti Liberati, who was then secretary of the National Association of Magistrates, and is now joint magistrate in Milan lieped foward. In this dossier were various notes on his orientation and on the possible moves that the magistrates might make as watchdogs of the new Berslusconi government.

In one filing box, four anonymous letters have been kept, of those which flooded the editors’ desks in all the main Italian dailies between March and April. Trash letters composed of little slanders and sometimes little truths, which should have served to redirect the attention of journalists who were following the Abu Omar affair away from the inquiry, and perhaps, contributed to intoxicating them.

In a wardrobe, a little box with the “Nigergate dossier” peeps out. For more than one year, government communiques have claimed that the stories in La Repubblica were false ... The little box demonstrates that SISMI has been obsessed with this affair in which it is embroiled hand and foot, and from which it doesn’t know how to extract itself. This too was a “task” commissioned by the Director. Just like the campaign of attack on La Repubblica that Pompa, as part of his job, conducted and supervised through “friendly” journalists at the Giornale, at Unita, at Libero, at Riformista, at Panorama. All ground out by the disinformation factory at Via Nazionale 230.

The same is true of a false claim on the first of June that there was a EU-US agreement signed by Romano Prodi as President of the Commission that made possible extraordinary renditions, and thus the kidnapping of Abu Omar. It’s going to take a lot of time to go through the monumental heap of dossiers. Might it be that the intercepted telephone calls of Giuseppe D’Avanzo are at via Nazionale? It is for sure that at Via Nazionale, Pompa reported on May 12 that the La Repubblica journalists were staying at Hotel Diana in Milan. When the Milan magistrates monitored the telephones of Marco Mancini, the disinformation factory was no longer a secret. Pompa can surely clear up what happened. On Wednesday, during the initial inquiry, he was said to be ready to “explain everything.” Yesterday morning he had changed his mind and was availing himself of his right to remain silent, according to Spataro.

Posted by Laura at July 7, 2006 07:49 AM