Italy will be seeking Pakistan’s assistance to investigate the death of Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian aid worker killed in 2015 by a US drone strike in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. Last month, an Italian judge at the Rome Tribunal, Anna Maria Gavoni, ordered the Italian prosecutor in charge of the investigation, Erminio Amelio, to file an international rogatory seeking judicial assistance “to acquire the full documentation on the investigation which the Pakistani authorities are certain to have conducted on the case.”
An experienced aid-worker, always siding with the vulnerable and beloved by friends and colleagues around the world, Giovanni became a prominent case in April 2015 when the US president, Barack Obama, publicly apologised for his death and the death of the US citizen Warren Weinstein. Both had been kidnapped in Pakistan years earlier and were killed in what Obama called “a US counterterrorism operation targeting an al Qaeda compound in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region,” an operation which “accidently killed Warren and Giovanni this past January,” the US president stated. This public apology made headlines around the world: it was the first time the US had ever apologised for killing innocent people in a drone strike.
The Undertaker
President Obama did not mention drones at all, he simply referred to a US counterterrorism operation. It was the US press that pieced together how Giovanni Lo Porto and Warren Weistein had been killed in a “signature strike,” a very controversial drone attack in which people are targeted without any certainty of their identity.
Two days after Obama went \public, The New York Times revealed the name of the architect of the US drone programme for the first time: Michael D’Andrea, who had also directed the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. According to the reporters who broke the story, D’Andrea had been removed from his position as chief of the CIA Counterterrorism Centre shortly after Giovanni Lo Porto and Warren Weinstein were killed.
The New York Times seemed to have revealed his name out of frustration with the complete lack of oversight for the US drone programme: Michael D’Andrea’s name was an open secret in the inner circle of top US national security reporters. The Washington Post had even reported that “Roger” (his cover name) had inspired the character of The Wolf in the film Zero Dark Thirty and that people were afraid of him because “Roger was the undertaker.”
The Truth and the Money
Obama’s White House did not just apologise, it promised a “full review of what happened” and compensation. In the Italian daily La Republica, it was revealed that the US signed a confidential agreement in July 2016, with Giovanni Lo Porto’s family for a “condolence payment” amounting to 1,185,092 million euros.
It was an “ex gratia payment,” as the document states in Italian and in English, clarifying that the donation “does not imply the consent by the United States of America to the exercise of the jurisdiction of the Italian Courts in disputes, if any, directly or indirectly connected with this instrument. Nothing in this instrument implies a waiver to sovereign or personal immunity.”
While the United States kept their promise of compensation, the truth never materialised: four years on, the killing of Giovanni Lo Porto and Warren Weinstein remains shrouded in secrecy. Last year, the Italian prosecutor in charge of the Italian investigation, Erminio Amelio, tried to file an international rogatory to the United States, seeking judicial assistance. Unfortunately, the United States did not cooperate with the Italian investigation for reasons of “national security interests.”
As the US diplomacy cables published by Julian Assange’s organization WikiLeaks reveal, the United States’ authorities have always viewed the Italian prosecutors as very independent actors. “Italian magistrates,” wrote the US diplomat in one of those cables, “are fiercely independent and are not answerable to any government authority/entity, including the Minister of Justice. Consequently, it is nearly impossible to prevent them from undertaking action in Italy that they wish to carry out. Attempts by the Italian government to influence them in any way are likely to have a negative effect.”
As a matter of fact, Italy is the only country in the world whose prosecutors convicted all 23 Americans, almost all of them CIA agents, involved in the extraordinary abduction of a Milan cleric, Abu Omar. This is one of the reasons human rights supporters look to the Italian investigation into the killing of Giovanni Lo Porto and Warren Weinstein as one of the very few opportunities to rip holes in the tight secrecy surrounding the US drone wars.
In Pakistan We Hope
Although the US has refused to cooperate with Italian authorities, the judge of the Rome Tribunal, Anna Maria Gavoni, ordered the Italian prosecutor in charge of the investigation to file an international rogatory seeking Pakistan’s cooperation in order “to acquire the full documentation on the investigation which the Pakistani authorities are certain to have conducted on the case.”
The ruling was welcomed by Giovanni Lo Porto’s family. Represented by three prominent Italian lawyers, professor Andrea Saccucci and Giulia Borgna of the Rome-based Saccucci & Partners law firm, and the well-known Italian lawyer Giorgio Perroni, Giovanni’s family has never stopped in their quest for truth.
“We are confident that Pakistan will fully cooperate with the Italian authorities to finally shed light on the circumstances surrounding the death of Giovanni Lo Porto,” the Italian lawyer Giulia Borgna tells us. “Pakistani authorities have repeatedly condemned drone strikes as illegal under international law. Their cooperation on this matter would represent a tangible step in bringing justice to drone victims.”
An experienced aid-worker, always siding with the vulnerable and beloved by friends and colleagues around the world, Giovanni became a prominent case in April 2015 when the US president, Barack Obama, publicly apologised for his death and the death of the US citizen Warren Weinstein. Both had been kidnapped in Pakistan years earlier and were killed in what Obama called “a US counterterrorism operation targeting an al Qaeda compound in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region,” an operation which “accidently killed Warren and Giovanni this past January,” the US president stated. This public apology made headlines around the world: it was the first time the US had ever apologised for killing innocent people in a drone strike.
The Undertaker
President Obama did not mention drones at all, he simply referred to a US counterterrorism operation. It was the US press that pieced together how Giovanni Lo Porto and Warren Weistein had been killed in a “signature strike,” a very controversial drone attack in which people are targeted without any certainty of their identity.
Two days after Obama went \public, The New York Times revealed the name of the architect of the US drone programme for the first time: Michael D’Andrea, who had also directed the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. According to the reporters who broke the story, D’Andrea had been removed from his position as chief of the CIA Counterterrorism Centre shortly after Giovanni Lo Porto and Warren Weinstein were killed.
The New York Times seemed to have revealed his name out of frustration with the complete lack of oversight for the US drone programme: Michael D’Andrea’s name was an open secret in the inner circle of top US national security reporters. The Washington Post had even reported that “Roger” (his cover name) had inspired the character of The Wolf in the film Zero Dark Thirty and that people were afraid of him because “Roger was the undertaker.”
Italy is the only country in the world whose prosecutors convicted all 23 Americans, almost all of them CIA agents, involved in the extraordinary abduction of a Milan cleric, Abu Omar
The Truth and the Money
Obama’s White House did not just apologise, it promised a “full review of what happened” and compensation. In the Italian daily La Republica, it was revealed that the US signed a confidential agreement in July 2016, with Giovanni Lo Porto’s family for a “condolence payment” amounting to 1,185,092 million euros.
It was an “ex gratia payment,” as the document states in Italian and in English, clarifying that the donation “does not imply the consent by the United States of America to the exercise of the jurisdiction of the Italian Courts in disputes, if any, directly or indirectly connected with this instrument. Nothing in this instrument implies a waiver to sovereign or personal immunity.”
While the United States kept their promise of compensation, the truth never materialised: four years on, the killing of Giovanni Lo Porto and Warren Weinstein remains shrouded in secrecy. Last year, the Italian prosecutor in charge of the Italian investigation, Erminio Amelio, tried to file an international rogatory to the United States, seeking judicial assistance. Unfortunately, the United States did not cooperate with the Italian investigation for reasons of “national security interests.”
As the US diplomacy cables published by Julian Assange’s organization WikiLeaks reveal, the United States’ authorities have always viewed the Italian prosecutors as very independent actors. “Italian magistrates,” wrote the US diplomat in one of those cables, “are fiercely independent and are not answerable to any government authority/entity, including the Minister of Justice. Consequently, it is nearly impossible to prevent them from undertaking action in Italy that they wish to carry out. Attempts by the Italian government to influence them in any way are likely to have a negative effect.”
As a matter of fact, Italy is the only country in the world whose prosecutors convicted all 23 Americans, almost all of them CIA agents, involved in the extraordinary abduction of a Milan cleric, Abu Omar. This is one of the reasons human rights supporters look to the Italian investigation into the killing of Giovanni Lo Porto and Warren Weinstein as one of the very few opportunities to rip holes in the tight secrecy surrounding the US drone wars.
In Pakistan We Hope
Although the US has refused to cooperate with Italian authorities, the judge of the Rome Tribunal, Anna Maria Gavoni, ordered the Italian prosecutor in charge of the investigation to file an international rogatory seeking Pakistan’s cooperation in order “to acquire the full documentation on the investigation which the Pakistani authorities are certain to have conducted on the case.”
The ruling was welcomed by Giovanni Lo Porto’s family. Represented by three prominent Italian lawyers, professor Andrea Saccucci and Giulia Borgna of the Rome-based Saccucci & Partners law firm, and the well-known Italian lawyer Giorgio Perroni, Giovanni’s family has never stopped in their quest for truth.
“We are confident that Pakistan will fully cooperate with the Italian authorities to finally shed light on the circumstances surrounding the death of Giovanni Lo Porto,” the Italian lawyer Giulia Borgna tells us. “Pakistani authorities have repeatedly condemned drone strikes as illegal under international law. Their cooperation on this matter would represent a tangible step in bringing justice to drone victims.”