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Italian politicians 'obstructing inquiry into child porn on Net'
By Frances Kennedy in Rome
Wednesday, 1 November 2000
Child-mad Italy, already perturbed by a sweeping international probe into paedophiles on the internet, is grappling with the nightmare that leading politicians or institutional figures may be implicated in the inquiry.
Child-mad Italy, already perturbed by a sweeping international probe into paedophiles on the internet, is grappling with the nightmare that leading politicians or institutional figures may be implicated in the inquiry.
The magistrate leading the investigation, Alfredo Ormanni, has provoked a furore by denouncing a "paedophile lobby" supported by politicians which he said openly obstructed the investigators and worked to prevent tougher sanctions for the consumers of child pornography. His comments have seen Italy's fragmented political forces close ranks swiftly to demand that if the magistrate has evidence of an organised pro-porn lobby that he name names.
Mr Ormanni last weekend charged 1,500 people, including 831 Italians, with selling or downloading internet child pornography. It was the culmination of a lengthy investigation by police, centring on a paedophile ring in Russia that operated a vast traffic via the internet. The gang allegedly kidnapped children from orphanages and parks and filmed them doing sexual acts against their will and then sold the footage for between £200 and £4,000 via the internet. Horrified investigators gathered images of more than 2,000 children who were filmed while being abused, raped and in one case killed.
"There is a paedophile lobby that acts in broad daylight and probably with the support, which I could consider unwitting, of certain political parties," said Mr Ormanni.
"If he has evidence of a crime we need names and surnames," responded interior minister Enzo Bianco in a television interview, saying he had created a "climate of suspicion that is frankly unacceptable".
The Social Affairs Minister, Livia Turco, accused Mr Ormanni of electioneering, and defended Italy's child protection legislation. Opposition hard-right MP Alessandra Mussolini, who recently proposed bombarding child sex sites with viruses, said the allegations must be cleared up immediately.
Mr Ormanni's comments, which recall the scandal that rocked Belgium, came shortly after one of Italy's most active anti-porn campaigners, Father Fortunato Di Noto, said he would not longer collaborate with the authorities because the phenomenon wasn't being taken seriously enough.
Material provided by Fr Di Noto and his volunteers at Telefono Arcobaleno has been indispensable in the current inquiry and past convictions.
Further heightening suspicion that the inquiry had touched insospettabili, figures above reproach, Fr Di Noto said he would explain his decision only in person to the Italian president.
As part of the operation, a special police squad near Naples set up a fake paedophile website which attracted more than 1,000 subscribers, despite clear warnings about the content. Most of those indicted are charged with downloading child pornography.
Paedophile scandal boosts cover-up conspiracy
Rory Carroll in Rome
Tuesday 31 October 2000
A huge child pornography ring has been smashed, the police are jubilant and the guilty snared. Or so it seems, and in Italy nothing is ever as it seems.
Breezing through chat shows, offices and homes is the suspicion of a cover-up. Almost 1,500 people have been charged but not those in high places who are believed to form a "paedophile lobby".
My neigbours, echoing last night's chat shows, are certain a conspiracy is afoot. Whispers and denunciations will continue awhile but probably come to nothing. Italy will have another mystery.
The facts are these. Two years ago police, prodded by a campaigning Sicilian priest, set up a fake website to trap sellers and buyers of child porn.
Self-styled "child-lovers" downloaded Russian-made films of seduction, rape and torture. Last week police charged 831 Italians and issued arrest warrants for 660 people in Europe, Asia and the United States.
A victory for law-enforcement, trumpeted the government. Quite the contrary, said the magistrate leading the investigation, Alfredo Ormanni. Speaking into a forest of microphones, he claimed a network of politicians and institutional figures had obstructed the investigation and tried to protect the guilty.
"There is a paedophile lobby that acts in broad daylight and probably with the support, which I could consider unwitting, of certain political parties," said Mr Ormanni.
Father Fortunato Di Noto, the priest who tipped off police, claimed ministers were refusing to act on evidence. He would explain himself only to President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi because he could not trust the government.
The effect was electric. Paedophiles in power closing ranks to protect their own. Unbelievable. Except lots of people believe.
The government has hit back, demanding that Mr Ormanni name names or shut up. The climate of suspicion was unacceptable, said interior minister Enzo Bianco.
The story appears to have peaked and today is already melting into inside pages, for the thunderbolts are spent. Proof is unlikely to emerge, leaving a legacy of suspicion.
"There they go again, wriggling off the hook," said my grocer, Raffaele, echoing widespread fatalism, cynicism and belief in conspiracies.
Another fact: Italian magistrates are often politicians-in-waiting. To make the leap requires a dash of publicity. Is Mr Ormanni such a man? Very possibly, but that doesn't deter belief in his claims.
His listeners are suffused with memories of myriad, unexplained acts of violence which the state may have covered up or even committed. To name just two. In June 1980 a DC-9 plane crashed near the island of Ustica, killing 81 people. A bomb on board, a missile or an accident? No one knows. Documents disappeared, voice recordings were erased, officials lied.
Last September eight military men, including four former generals, went on trial on charges of giving false testimony. In December 1969 a bomb ripped through a bank in Milan's Piazza Fontana, killing 16 and injuring 84. Right-wing terrorists, almost certainly, but in cahoots with security services?
Possibly, since at that time a climate of fear was judged propitious to combat communism. But no one knows, despite seven trials. The eight started last March.
"It's an amazing story," said the writer Dario Fo. "The fascists, and even the state and branches of the secret police and paramilitary organisations and even the CIA were involved."
The prime minister himself, Giuliano Amato, publicly hinted that the state needed to come clean.
No area is above suspicion. This week eight professional footballers were found guilty of match-fixing. Doping claims swirl around Italy's Olympic medallists.
Little wonder that Pope John Paul I and Diana, Princess of Wales, are widely believed to have been murdered. When politicians, generals, cardinals and sportsmen cannot be trusted, accepting their word strikes many as just plain dumb.
Pacciani, stocky and tough, was convicted of the crimes in 1994 and died four years later. Italy consigned the case to history. Except that last week evidence surfaced suggesting Pacciani was not the Monster. He was merely the delivery-man to a Satanic sect, which commissioned the murders to obtain human body parts for ceremonies, said investigators.
The real monsters were allegedly the wealthy and respected members of Tuscan society - including a doctor, ambassador and an artist - who to this day have remained undetected. A cover-up involving secret service agents and missing money is now said to be unravelling.
Last week detectives from Florence raided the homes and offices of Aurelio Mattei, a psychologist with the secret service, Sisde, and of Francesco Bruno, Italy's leading criminal psychologist.
Police watchdog to investigate claims Met covered up child abuse
The Independent Police Complaints Commission has launched an investigation into allegations of police corruption in London relating to child sex offences dating back to the 1970s, including that officers colluded in the coverup of a high-level paedophile ring.
The allegations, referred by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), include suppressing evidence, hindering or halting investigations and covering up offences because of the involvement of MPs and police officers.
“These allegations are of historic, high-level corruption of the most serious nature,” said Sarah Green, the IPCC deputy chair. “We will oversee the investigations and ensure that they meet the terms of reference that we will set. Allegations of this nature are of grave concern and I would like to reassure people of our absolute commitment to ensuring that the investigations are thorough and robust.”
Parallel investigations being conducted by the MPS into the original allegations of child abuse and the new criminal investigations looking at alleged police corruption are closely linked and well under way, said the IPCC.
“Therefore, after careful assessment, the IPCC will manage the investigations being conducted by the MPS’s directorate of professional standards,” the IPCC added.
Among the allegations to be investigated are that an inquiry involving a operation targeting young men in Dolphin Square, near Westminster, was stopped because officers were too near prominent people.
Another involves a document that was found at an address of a paedophile originating from the Houses of parliament listing a number of highly prominent individuals (MPs and senior police officers) as being involved in a paedophile ring and where no further action was taken.
The IPCC will look into 16 allegations in all, including one involving a surveillance operation in the late 1970s that gathered intelligence on a politician being involved in paedophile activities that was closed down by a senior MPS officer.
Last year, a former Scotland Yard detective who won plaudits for his work on cases including the murder of Stephen Lawrence claimed that he was moved from his post earlier when he revealed plans to investigate politicians over child abuse claims.
Speaking about his inquiries in 1998 into activity alleged to have taken place in Lambeth children’s homes in the 1980s, retired detective chief inspector Clive Driscoll said his work was “all too uncomfortable to a lot of people”.
The Met launched Operation Midland last November following allegations that boys were sexually abused by a paedophile ring centred at a number of addresses more than 30 years ago. An alleged victim of sexual abuse claimed to have witnessed the murder of a 12-year-old boy by a Conservative MP, and said two other boys had been murdered by members of a paedophile network.
One of those addresses was the Dolphin Square apartment block near the Houses of parliament. Detectives have received claims that have led them to investigate other addresses, to establish whether they can be ruled in or out of their inquiries.
Royal family member was investigated as part of paedophile ring before cover-up, ex-cop says
A member of the Royal family was claimed to be part of a suspected paedophile ring under investigation by police in the late 1980s, a former police officer has said.
The former Metropolitan Police officer says he was told by a detective sergeant that the investigation into the ring, which was also claimed to include an MP, was shut down for national security reasons.
“I was in a car with two other vice squad officers. … The detective sergeant said he had just had a major child abuse investigation shut down by the CPS regarding a royal and an MP,” he told the Sunday Mirror newspaper.
“He did not mention names, but he said the CPS had said it was not in the public’s interest because it ‘could destabilise national security’.”
The police officer identified the two colleagues, the newspaper said.
Sir Allan Green, the Director of Public Prosecutions and head of the CPS at the time the conversation took place, said he was not aware of any child abuse investigations shut down for national security reasons.
He however said he had been asked by a “senior person” if he had heard anything about a named MP being involved in child abuse. He said he had not.
The MP he was asked about has since died, Mr Green said.
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: "If detailed, substantive allegations are made they will be taken seriously and looked into. However, we are not in a position to comment on speculative stories based on a chain of unnamed sources."
The Metropolitan Police has pledged to investigate historical crimes by establishment figures “without fear of favour”.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Rodhouse told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he was pleased that allegations of cover-ups were coming to light.
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"We do think we are getting somewhere with these wider enquiries and we are seeing people coming forward. We have seen lots of coverage this week around allegations of cover-ups, and I think it's helpful that this is being spoken about and people are coming forward.
"We will go where the evidence takes us, without fear or favour, I think that is what the public expect and that is what the investigators are doing and are keen to continue to do."
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating 14 related allegations of impropriety by officer stretching from the 1970s to 2005.
The Home Secretary Theresa May said earlier month that child sexual abuse ran through British society like a “stick of Blackpool rock” and warned that the public did not fully “appreciate the true scale” of exploitation.
Metropolitan Police to be investigate
[...]
Gordonstoun was a success, especially after Prince Philip of Greece, now the Duke of Edinburgh, arrived. Other royals followed: five of the Queen’s children and grandchildren went there, despite Charles’s complaints. By the 1970s it was touted as a place for spoilt or wealthy children who needed toughening up – Sean Connery and David Bowie’s sons went, and so did Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter. Physical punishment, strict discipline and cold showers were key to Hahn’s approach to keeping children in line.
[...]
A startling series of allegations, dating back to the 1960s, has emerged in recent years. They’re not all ancient history. Kevin Lomas, a teacher at the senior school during Kate and John’s time was jailed in 2008 for sexual offences against young girls at a tutoring school he ran in Oxfordshire.
During the 16 years Lomas worked at Gordonstoun he had a reputation for inappropriate sexual activity: he was known for his fumbling attempts to kiss the girl pupils – “with tongue”. He, too, took children on exped. A Gordonstoun spokesperson told us: “There is no suggestion that Mr Lomas committed any criminal behaviour during his time at the school.” If there were, then or now, the school would inform the police.
Such events and others, coupled with the stream of recent stories about sex scandals and cover-ups in celebrated public schools, sparked talk among Gordonstoun’s ex-pupils. In 2013 some of them began a private Facebook group, discussing things that had happened at the school, “that you don’t see in the brochures and the class photographs”, as one of them put it. Rapes, of boys and girls, were mentioned. Kate started to receive messages from girls she had known, apologising for the gossip and rumours, for the bullying, and for not having done more to help.
elfismiles » Thu Apr 16, 2015 4:12 pm wrote:Political Pedophilia: An open source investigation
corbettreport
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92T6cVlXcyg
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