Savoini is innocent, what the League did with Putin is not

For the Salvinian League, international politics has never been the result of an examination of the position of the country and its interests, it has been treated as a purely propaganda exercise, which has led to errors that are there for all to see

The investigation into Metropol case ended up being archived. Four years ago the Northern League exponent Gianluca Savoini had met, together with the lawyer Gianluca Meranda and Francesco Vannucci, in the well-known Moscow hotel, with exponents of the Russian establishment, to negotiate an oil sale. It was assumed that the proceeds of the deal would result in a bribe intended to finance the League. The deal was not concluded, it was only a question of preliminary talks which were not followed by any actual negotiations: for this reason no elements of a crime were found and the investigating judge therefore accepted the request for dismissal presented by the same prosecution. The court case ended as it should have ended. But, as we have argued in Il Foglio from the beginning, this was not the issue under discussion, but the political relationship of the League, and of its leader Matteo Salvini, with Vladimir Putin’s party.