IS A new version of P2, Propaganda Due, the banned Masonic lodge, alive and well and trying to influence public life in today’s Italy?
That would appear to be the most significant question prompted by the arrest this week of the controversial 78-year-old Flavio Carboni, a man once accused (and acquitted) of the murder of “God’s Banker”, Roberto Calvi, and who in 1998 received an 8½-year sentence for his role in the 1982 collapse of Calvi’s infamous Banco Ambrosiano.
On Thursday, Rome-based magistrates ordered the arrest of Mr Carboni and two other men, the former Christian Democrat figure Pasquale Lombardi and Neapolitan ex-socialist Arcangelo Martino. In the arrest warrant, the magistrates state the three men were involved in “a criminal network intended to bring about an indeterminate number of crimes . . . to influence the functioning of constitutional institutions as well as of various sections of the public administration”.
Among other things, the magistrates allege Mr Carboni attempted to secretly lobby the constitutional court last September and October to obtain a favourable ruling on the controversial Lodo Alfano, government legislation which had effectively granted prime minister Silvio Berlusconi immunity from prosecution while in office.
Despite Mr Carboni's best efforts, however, the constitutional court ruled against the government and annulled the Lodo Alfano.
Magistrates also allege that, during this period, Mr Carboni and partners were in close contact with senior figures in Mr Berlusconi’s ruling Freedom Party (PDL), including party co-ordinator Denis Verdini and Sicilian senator Marcello Dell’Utri, who last month, in an appeals court hearing in Palermo, received a seven-year sentence for Mafia collusion.
Mr Carboni is also accused of having campaigned on behalf of the junior economy minister, Nicola Cosentino, accused of collusion with the Camorra and someone who magistrates tried to arrest last November on charges he had collaborated with the Camorra in the recycling of toxic waste.
Democratic party leader Pierluigi Bersani called the investigation “terrifying” while the former investigative magistrate, Antonio Di Pietro, leader of the Italy of Values party, said Mr Carboni had attempted “to influence the judiciary and undermine the rule of law”.