“I investigated? I don’t know anything about it, there’s a repentant who invents stories. Shameful shovelfuls of mud against me»- Corriere.it

“I would be registered in the register of suspects in Reggio Calabria” on the basis of the words of a “repentant who invents stories” and that “I have reported for slander”. But of this story, used in an “unscrupulous” way, “I know nothing, I don’t know if it’s true”, but “I have never received anything, I don’t know if I am under investigation or what is being disputed about me”. These are “shameful shovelfuls of mud”, but “I immediately took a step back” because “the function is too important” and therefore “I couldn’t take any risks”, but “I will defend my integrity”. Thus to AdnKronos the Calabrian criminal lawyer Giuseppe Valentino, former Undersecretary of Justice in the Berlusconi government, who yesterday, after being indicated by FdI as a lay member of the CSM, took a step back.

«In 2000, while I was defending a PSDI parliamentarian – Valentino explains to AdnKronos -, I was involved in a story which gave rise to a series of misunderstandings. Everything was archived in 2004 or 2005. Since then I have not heard anything. However, and let’s get to the facts that concern us, every now and then a repentant comes out who says, invents stories related to that affair, ‘I learned from… that Valentino was there too’. I am called into the trial as a witness, at least I believed, in the interests of a defendant in the ‘Gotha’ trial, who was also a kind of repentant, who meant that it was not true that he had said such a thing about me, that what concerned me was not true, in essence he wanted my declaration to contest what the repentant had reported. In that circumstance I learn that I am being investigated in the connected trial ».

«Fortunately – continues Valentino – a lawyer friend who I have known for some time accompanied me and advised me to avail myself of the right not to answer, because it is one thing to be a witness, another to be a defendant, and then he asks the magistrate if he would like to hear from me in the afternoon . The magistrate says no, that there was absolutely no need. So I denounce the person who had mentioned my name for slander, and someone will have to give me an account of this denunciation, and I remove the matter. All of this occurred two or three years ago but always with reference to events that would have occurred at the beginning of 2000. Then I don’t know anything else”.

«And now – underlines the former undersecretary – the news comes out that for this affair I would be registered in the register of suspects, but we don’t know if it’s true, I have to verify. Of course I have never received anything since 2000, nothing, I always learned things from the newspapers, just as I learned about the filing for the first trial from the newspapers. So I don’t know anything, if I’m being investigated, what they contest me, nothing”. The news, however, says Valentino, “pulled out I think by those of the M5S, so someone must have told them this fact that I didn’t know, I had removed it because too much time had passed”, resulted in his withdrawal from the race at the CSM: «I couldn’t run the risk of checking later whether it’s true or not – explains Valentino -, so I immediately took a step back. I couldn’t take the risk, the function is too important to be touched by doubt». «I spoke of shameful shovelfuls of mud, I don’t know how else to define them – the criminal lawyer explains again -, if someone whom I sue for slander refers these things to me, they are shovelfuls of mud. Of this denunciation for slander, among other things, I have never heard anything again». «I absolutely don’t feel targeted – he underlines -, but the thing was used unscrupulously. I will defend myself with all the tools that the law allows me, I will defend my integrity. Anyone who knows me knows how I have always led my life, and perhaps I pay the price of not having been bad, tough when I could have been».