The Monster of Florence (29 page)
O
n April 7, the day of his arrest, Spezi finally arrived at Capanne prison, twenty kilometers outside Perugia. He was hustled into the prison grounds and brought to a room with nothing but a blanket spread on the cement floor, a table, a chair, and a cardboard box.
His guards told him to empty his pockets. Spezi did so. They told him to take off his watch and the crucifix he wore around his neck. Then one of them yelled at him to strip.
Spezi took off his sweater, shirt, and undershirt, and shoes. And waited.
“Everything. If your feet are cold, stand on the blanket.”
Spezi stripped until he was completely naked.
“Bend over three times,” the head guard ordered him.
Spezi wasn’t sure what he meant.
“Do like this,” said another, demonstrating a crouch. “All the way to the ground. Three times. And push.”
After a degrading search, he was told to dress himself in the prison garb he would find in the cardboard box. The guards allowed him a single pack of cigarettes. They filled out some forms and ushered him to a cold cell. One of the guards opened the door and Spezi went in. Behind him, he heard the four loud clashings of steel as the cell door was slammed shut and barred, and the lock turned.
His dinner that night was bread and water.
The next morning, April 8, Spezi was allowed to meet with one of his lawyers, who had arrived at the prison early. Later, he would supposedly be allowed a short visit with his wife. The guards escorted him into a room where he found his lawyer seated at a table, a stack of files in front of him. They had barely exchanged greetings when a new guard rushed in with a big smile on his pockmarked face.
“This meeting is canceled. Orders of the prosecutor’s office. Counsel, if you don’t mind—?”
Spezi barely had the time to tell his lawyer to reassure his wife that he was well, before he was hauled back and locked up in isolation.
For five days, Spezi wouldn’t know why he had been suddenly denied a lawyer and placed in isolation. The rest of Italy learned the next morning. The day of Spezi’s arrest, Public Minister Mignini had asked the examining magistrate in Spezi’s case, Judge Marina De Robertis, to invoke a law normally used only against dangerous terrorists and Mafia kingpins who pose an imminent threat to the state. Spezi would be denied access to his lawyers and kept in isolation. The purpose of the law was to prevent a violent criminal from ordering the killing or intimidation of witnesses through his lawyers or visitors. Now it was applied against the extremely dangerous journalist Mario Spezi. The press noted that Spezi’s treatment in prison was even harsher than that meted out to Bernardo Provenzano, the Mafia boss of bosses, captured near Corleone, Sicily, four days after Spezi was arrested.
For five days, nobody had any idea of what had happened to Spezi, where he was, or what they might be doing to him. His judicial disappearance caused exquisite psychological anguish to all of his friends and family. The authorities refused to release any information about him, his state of health, or the conditions of his imprisonment. Spezi simply vanished into the black maw of Capanne prison.
B
ack in America, I recalled Niccolò’s words—that Italy would be ashamed before the world. I was determined to make that happen. I hoped to cause an uproar in America that would embarrass the Italian state and force it to remedy this miscarriage of justice.
I called every organization I knew that was concerned with freedom of the press. I wrote an appeal and broadcast it on the Web. It concluded, “I ask all of you, please, for the love of truth and freedom of the press, come to Spezi’s aid. This should not be happening in the beautiful and civilized country that I love, the country that gave the world the Renaissance.” The appeal included the names, addresses, and e-mail addresses of the prime minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, the minister of the interior, and the minister of justice. The appeal was picked up and published at many websites, translated into Italian and Japanese, and written about by various bloggers.
The Boston branch of PEN organized an effective letter-writing campaign. A novelist friend of mine, David Morrell (the creator of Rambo), wrote a letter of protest to the Italian government, as did many other well-known writers who belonged to International Thriller Writers (ITW), an organization I helped found. Many of these writers were best-selling authors in Italy, too, and their names carried weight. I received an assignment from the
Atlantic Monthly
to write a story about the Monster case and Spezi’s arrest.
The worst was not knowing. Spezi’s disappearance created a void filled with grim speculations and terrible rumors. Spezi was at the mercy of the public minister of Perugia, a man of great power, and Chief Inspector Giuttari, whom the newspapers had dubbed
il superpoliziotto
, the supercop, because he operated with an apparent lack of oversight. For those five silent days I woke up thinking of Spezi in prison, not knowing what they might be doing to him, and it drove me crazy. We all have a psychological breaking point and I wondered whether they would find Spezi’s—because breaking him was surely their plan.
Every morning I would sit in my hut in the Maine woods, having made every call I could think of, shaking with frustration, feeling powerless while waiting for return phone calls, waiting for the organizations I had contacted to take some kind of action.
The managing editor of
The New Yorker
had put me in touch with Ann Cooper, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York–based organization. This organization, above all others, understood the urgency of the situation and leapt into action. CPJ immediately launched an independent investigation of the Spezi case in Italy, directed by Nina Ognianova, program coordinator for Europe, interviewing journalists, police, judges, and colleagues of Spezi.
In the early days following Spezi’s arrest, most of the major daily newspapers in Italy—especially in Tuscany and Umbria, and particularly Mario’s home paper,
La Nazione
—shied away from covering the full story. They reported Spezi’s arrest and the charges against him, but they treated it as a simple crime story. Most remained silent on the larger questions of freedom of the press raised by the arrest. There were almost no protests. Few journalists commented on one of the most insidious charges against Spezi, that of “obstructing an official investigation by means of the press.” (Inside
La Nazione
, we would learn later, a number of Spezi colleagues were fighting with the paper’s management over the newspaper’s lily-livered coverage.)
In my conversations with Italian friends and journalists, I was surprised to discover that quite a few suspected that at least some of the accusations were true. Perhaps, some of my Italian colleagues demurred, I didn’t understand Italy well after all, as this was the sort of thing Italian journalists did all the time. They viewed my outrage as naïve and a bit gauche. To be outraged is to be earnest, to be sincere—and to be a dupe. Some Italians were quick to strike the pose of the world-weary cynic who takes nothing at face value and who is far too clever to be taken in by Spezi’s and my protestations of innocence.
“Ah!” said Count Niccolò in one of our frequent conversations. “
Of course
Spezi and you were up to no good at that villa!
Dietrologia
insists that it be so. Only a naïf would believe that you two journalists went to the villa ‘just to have a look.’ The police wouldn’t have arrested Spezi for no reason! You see, Douglas, an Italian must always appear to be
furbo.
You don’t have an English equivalent for that marvelous word. It means a person who is wily and cunning, who knows which way the wind is blowing, who can fool you but never be fooled himself. Everyone in Italy wants to believe the worst of others so they don’t end up looking gullible. Above all, they want to be seen as
furbo
.”
I had trouble, as an American, appreciating the climate of fear and intimidation in Italy surrounding the issue. True freedom of the press does not exist in Italy, especially since any public official can ask that criminal charges be lodged against a journalist for “
diffamazione a mezzo stampa
”—defamation by means of the press.
The intimidation of the press was particularly evident in the refusal of our book publisher, RCS Libri, part of one of the largest publishing conglomerates in the world, to make a statement of support for Spezi. Indeed, our editor assiduously avoided the press except when tracked down by a reporter from the
Boston Globe
. “Journalist Spezi and the main police investigator hate each other,” she told the
Globe
. “Why? I don’t know. . . . If they [Preston and Spezi] think they have discovered something useful to police and law, they should say something without insulting police and judges.”
Meanwhile, from the Capanne prison near Perugia, there was no word on the fate of Mario Spezi.
O
n April 12, the five-day blackout was lifted, and Spezi was finally allowed to meet with his lawyers. On that day, his case would be reviewed by the examining magistrate, Marina De Robertis, in the Italian equivalent of a habeas corpus hearing. Its purpose was to determine if Spezi’s arrest and incarceration were justified.
On that day, for the hearing, Spezi was for the first time given a change of clothes, a bar of soap, and a chance to shave and take a bath. The public minister, Guiliano Mignini, appeared before Judge De Robertis to argue why Spezi was a danger to society.
“The journalist,” Mignini wrote in his brief, “accused of obstructing the investigation of the Monster of Florence is at the center of a genuine disinformation campaign, not unlike that which might be undertaken by a deviant secret service.” This disinformation operation, Mignini explained, was an attempt to derail the investigation into the “group of notable people” who had been the masterminds behind the killings of the Monster of Florence. Among these notables was Narducci, who had hired and directed Pacciani and his picnicking friends to kill young lovers and take their body parts. Spezi and his fellow criminal masterminds had a strategy: to keep the blame for the Monster of Florence murders restricted to Pacciani and his picnicking friends. When that strategy failed, and the investigation began to strike closer to home—with the reopening of Narducci’s death—Spezi had desperately tried to redirect the investigation back to the Sardinian Trail, because “in that case there wouldn’t be even the minimum danger that the investigation might touch the world of the notables and the masterminds.”
The statement included not a shred of solid forensic evidence—just a cockamamie conspiracy theory spun out to fantastic lengths.
Dietrologia
at its purest.
At the hearing, Spezi protested the conditions in which he was being held. He insisted he was merely conducting legitimate research as a journalist, not running a “disinformation campaign of a deviant secret service.”
Judge Marina De Robertis looked at Spezi and asked a single question: the only question she would ask during the entire hearing.
“Have you ever belonged to a satanic sect?”
At first Spezi wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. His lawyer nudged him in the side and hissed, “Don’t laugh!”
A simple no to the question seemed insufficient. Dryly, Spezi said, “The only order I’m a member of is the Order of Journalists.”
With that, the hearing was over.
The judge took four leisurely days making up her mind. On Saturday, Spezi met with his lawyer to hear the verdict.
“I have good news and bad news,” said Traversi. “Which do you want to hear first?”
“The bad news.”
Judge De Robertis had ruled he must remain in preventive detention, because of the danger he posed to society.
“And the good news?”
Traversi had seen, in the window of a bookstore in Florence, a bunch of copies of
Dolci Colline di Sangue
for sale. The book was finally out.
M
eanwhile, Chief Inspector Giuttari forged ahead with the investigation, “toscano” cigar clamped between his determined teeth. For some time, the lack of a second body in the so-called Narducci murder had been an embarrassment, two corpses being necessary to make the double switch with Narducci’s. Giuttari finally found a suitable body in that of a South American, bashed on the head, which had been left unclaimed in the morgue of Perugia since 1982, kept under refrigeration. The man seemed, at least to some, to resemble the dead body of Narducci in the photograph taken on the dock after he had been fished out of the water. After Narducci had been murdered, the body of this previously dead South American had been stolen from the morgue and dumped in the lake in its stead, Narducci’s body had been hidden, perhaps in the morgue, perhaps somewhere else. Then, many years later, when the exhumation of Narducci looked imminent, the bodies were switched again, Narducci’s being put back in his coffin and the South American’s spirited away and parked back in the refrigerator.
With Spezi in prison, Giuttari spoke to
La Nazione
about the excellent progress he was making in the Narducci case: “Yes, we’re working on the death of this man which occurred in ’82, and there are elements that are quite interesting and which may lead us to something concrete. . . . I believe that it is now beyond doubt that the body recovered from Lake Trasimeno was not Narducci’s. . . . And now, in light of these new facts, the situation may become clearer.” But something must have gone wrong with this particular theory, since the dead South American was never mentioned by Giuttari again and the facts surrounding the alleged double body switch remained—and still remain—as murky as ever.
Spezi’s lawyers began working to obtain a hearing before the Tribunal of Reexamination, an appeals court for those ordered imprisoned before trial, similar to a bail hearing in the United States, to determine whether there were grounds to hold Spezi in “preventive detention” until the time of his trial, or to release him under house arrest or other conditions. Italian law has no provisions for monetary bail, and the judgment is made on the basis of how dangerous the accused is and whether there is a likelihood he will flee the country.
A date was set for Spezi’s hearing: April 28. The review would take place before three other judges from Perugia, close colleagues of the public minister and of the examining magistrate. The Tribunal of Reexamination was not known for reversing its colleagues, especially in a highly visible case like this one, on which the public minister had placed all his credibility as a prosecutor.
On April 18, twelve days after Spezi’s arrest, the Committee to Protect Journalists had finished its investigation into Spezi’s case. The next day, Ann Cooper, the executive director, faxed a letter to the prime minister of Italy. It said, in part:
Journalists should not be fearful to conduct their own investigations into sensitive matters or to speak openly and criticize officials. In a democratic country such as your own, one that is an integral part of the European Union, such fear is unacceptable. We call on you to make sure that Italian authorities clarify the serious charges against our colleague Mario Spezi and make public all available evidence supporting those charges, or release him immediately.
The persecution of Mario Spezi and his U.S. colleague Douglas Preston, who is afraid to travel to Italy for fear of prosecution, sends a dangerous message to Italian journalists that sensitive stories such as the Tuscany killings should be avoided. Government efforts to promote this climate of self-censorship are anathema to democracy.
Copies of the letter went to Public Minister Mignini, the U.S. ambassador to Italy, the Italian ambassador to the United States, Amnesty International, Freedom Forum, Human Rights Watch, and a dozen other international organizations.
This letter, along with protests from other international organizations, including Reporters sans Frontières in Paris, seemed to turn the tide in Italy. The Italian press found its courage—with a vengeance.
“The Jailing of Spezi Is an Infamy,” cried an editorial in
Libero
, written by the vice director of the magazine.
Corriere della Sera
ran a major editorial on the front page entitled “Justice without Evidence,” calling Spezi’s arrest a “monstrosity.” The Italian press finally took up the question of what Spezi’s arrest meant for freedom of the press and Italy’s international image. A flood of articles followed. Spezi’s colleagues at
La Nazione
signed an appeal, and the paper issued a statement. Many journalists began to recognize that Spezi’s arrest was an attack on a journalist for the “crime” of disagreeing with an official investigation—in other words, the criminalization of journalism itself. Protests mounted in Italy from press organizations and newspapers. A group of eminent journalists and writers signed an appeal, which said in part, “Frankly, we did not think that in Italy the strenuous search for the truth could be misunderstood as illegally favoring and assisting the guilty.”
“The case of Spezi and Preston casts a heavy weight on the international image of our country,” the president of Italy’s Information Safety and Freedom organization told the
Guardian
newspaper of London, “and risks relegating us to the bottom of any list defining press freedom and democracy.”
I was besieged with calls from the Italian press and I gave a number of interviews. My lawyer in Italy was not pleased to see me quoted so liberally. She had had a meeting with the public minister of Perugia, Giuliano Mignini, to discuss my case and to try to find out what the charges were against me, which had been sealed, naturally, in
segreto istruttorio
. She wrote me a letter saying that she sensed a “certain disapproval” from the public minister of statements I had made to the press after my interrogation. She added, dryly, “The Public Minister must not have welcomed the raising of the issue to the international diplomatic level. . . . It is not helpful to your case to make personal statements against the Public Minister . . . and it would be opportune that, after having reexamined some of the statements made by you at that time (which must have had a negative impact on Dr. Mignini), you would mitigate their effects by distancing yourself from them.”
She confirmed that the charges against me were for making false statements to the public minister, for the crime of “calumny” in attempting to frame an innocent person for a crime, defamation by means of the press, and interference with an essential public service. I was not being charged, as I had feared, with being an accessory to the murder of Narducci.
I wrote back, saying that I was sorry that I could not distance myself from the statements I had made, and that there was nothing I could do to mitigate the discomfort Mignini might be feeling about the case being raised to the “international diplomatic level.”
In the midst of this, I received another long e-mail from Gabriella Carlizzi, who had, it seemed, been one of the very first purchasers of our book,
Dolci Colline di Sangue
.
Here I am, dear Douglas. . . . Yesterday evening I came back from Perugia very late, in this last week I have been to the magistrate’s office three times, because you know, since Mario Spezi has been imprisoned, many people who were living for years in terror have contacted me, and each one has wanted to tell of his experiences with Mario’s actions. . . .
You might ask: why did these people not speak before?
For fear of Mario Spezi and those they suspect, very strongly, of having an interest in “covering up for him.”
And so we turn to you.
As I have been deposed in these recent days, it has given me the opportunity to make it understood to Dr. Mignini how you couldn’t possibly be involved, and I repeat to you Douglas, as far as you are concerned the magistrate is convinced and serene. . . .
Meanwhile I renew my invitation for you to come to Italy, and you will see that all will become cleared up with the magistrate, who if you wish you can meet even in Perugia, you and your lawyer, I hope different from Spezi’s lawyers, and you will be completely absolved of any accusations.
I read the book,
Dolci Colline di Sangue
: I say to you right away that it would have been much better had your name not been on that book. The book has been obtained by the prosecutor’s office and I think there will be judicial consequences. . . . Unfortunately, Douglas, you signed the contents of this book. This is a very serious business, that has nothing to do with the work of Mignini, but is by now under the eye of the Criminal Justice System, and it risks blemishing your career as a writer. . . . Spezi, leaning on the prestige of your name, has involved you in a situation that if you come to Italy, I will help you mitigate your responsibility, and I repeat, it is urgent that we see each other, believe me. . . . On this book,
porca miseria
, there is your name! Excuse me but it makes me furious when I think of the diabolicalness of this Spezi. . . .
I await your news and I warmly embrace you and your family.
Gabriella
One other thing: Since I think it is right that
The New Yorker
should also “dissociate” itself from Spezi and his actions, if you wish, I can explain certain things in an interview, getting you out of the situation into which Spezi has pulled you, that is to say I can demonstrate to the American press your lack of involvement in the “fraud.”
I read the e-mail with disbelief, and finally, for the first time in weeks, I found myself laughing at the absurdity of it all. Could any novelist, even a writer with the
coglioni
of, say, Norman Mailer, have dared invent a character like this woman? I think not.
April 28, the day of Spezi’s appearance before the Tribunal of Reexamination, approached. I spoke to Myriam on April 27. She was extremely fearful of what might happen at the hearing, and she told me Spezi’s lawyers shared her pessimism. If the judges kept Spezi in preventive detention, he would remain in prison for at least another three months before the next judicial review could take place, and a reversal of his imprisonment would be even more unlikely. The Italian judicial system moves at a glacial pace; the ugly truth was that Spezi could remain in prison for years before his case finally came to trial.
Spezi’s lawyers had learned that Mignini was preparing a full-court press at the hearing to make absolutely sure Spezi wasn’t released. This had become the most visible case the public minister had undertaken in his career. The criticism of him in the national and worldwide press had been scorching and was rising daily. His reputation depended on winning this hearing.
I called Niccolò and asked if he had any predictions on what Mario’s fate would be. He was guarded and pessimistic. “Judges in Italy protect their own” was all he would say.