Enzo Carra, dead former DC spokesman who was rehabilitated by Mani Pulite

Enzo Carra, former DC spokesman when Arnaldo Forlani was secretary, died in Rome overnight. He was 79 years old. “A good, cultured, intelligent man. A piece of history of the Christian Democrats and a witness of what politics should be. For me and for many of us, he is a true friend who will be missed.” Pd senator Dario Franceschini writes it in a note of condolence.

As an innocent he suffered the violence of the photo with the slaves during Mani Pulite, which years later he recounted as follows: «I’m going to Milan, Di Pietro questions me. I explain to him that I know almost nothing, except what I read in the newspapers. Mine was a technical role, as a communicator. He says to me: “But he knows, going to the bathroom in those buildings of power one learns things” ». Carra continued his story like this: «Di Pietro makes an appointment for me on Friday, three days later. “Because we need to do some feedback”. On my return on Friday, I find myself faced with a script, however imaginative, already written. A guy I’ve never seen, a fixer who was about to get out of prison, would have told him that he had met me in Rome. And I would have told him about the big bribe. I look him in the eyes, I ask him under what circumstances. He stammers: in his office in Rome, there were several secretaries… and at the end of the sentence he starts crying. He had to play the part to get out of jail, I pity him. Di Pietro smiles and prints on me the accusation of having lied to the prosecutor. I defend myself but he doesn’t listen to me. He needed fresh defendants, and I, who was secretary Forlani’s spokesman, was succulent for him».

He told the story of the photo like this: «I had to appear before the judges, I was on the ground floor of the Palace of Justice. Two Carabinieri were preparing to accompany me holding my arm, then a phone call arrived. I never knew whose. You see them consulting: the order had arrived to put me in chains. I had to appear in front of the wall of cameras and photographers handcuffed, as a symbol of the victory of the magistrates over politics. I was very impressed but luckily I remained lucid».

Enzo Carra covered politics as a journalist for almost twenty years, before becoming a protagonist as spokesman for the DC and then as a centrist parliamentarian. Born in Rome on 8 August 1943, already at the age of 22 he began writing dealing with film criticism, also founding a newspaper entitled ‘Il Dramma’. Then in the 1970s he landed at ‘Il Tempo’, where he remained until 1987, the leading author of the political pages. During the Caf years, with Arnaldo Forlani taking over the leadership of the DC in 1989, he became the party’s spokesman, then involved, against his will, in the investigation relating to the maxi Enimont bribe, accused of perjury. A story that, also and above all for the ways that lead to his arrest in the winter of 1993, marks his life and that of his family.

«My son – he will tell in an interview on the occasion of Tangentopoli’s thirtieth anniversary – was bullied at school and had a lot of trouble recovering. I got back on track thanks to a psychiatrist friend. I wanted to leave, my wife insisted we stay in Italy, I started working again only two years later thanks to Minoli». Sentenced definitively in 1995 and then rehabilitated in 2004, he therefore returns to journalism, author of numerous television investigations for Rai, including a reportage in Cuba immediately after the visit of Pope John Paul II, an interview with Gaddafi during the embargo on Libya and what will be the last interview with Mother Teresa of Calcutta. However he is unable to resist the call of politics and in 2001 he is elected to the Chamber with Margherita (he will be the minority speaker of the Gasparri law on telecommunications), confirmed in 2006 and then in 2008. In the meantime he entered the Pd after the merger between DS and Margherita, will leave him in 2010 to join the Union of the center. Before leaving the Chamber he will be able to see the law on fair compensation for precarious journalists approved as rapporteur.