LONDON / ROME: Italy has reopened its inquiry into the massacre of seven of its nationals in Algeria after the Observer revealed fresh evidence indicting the country's secret police.
In a week in which the Algerian military junta tried to discredit the Observer revelations, the launch of an investigation by the Italian authorities into the massacre of its seamen was a huge blow.
The Observer report last week detonated high-level diplomatic and secret service rows across Europe, with British, French, Italian and Algerian officials working hard behind the scenes to dismiss the evidence of "Joseph", a former Algerian secret policeman.But his testimony - implicating the Algerian secret police in a swath of atrocities at home and abroad - has caused other witnesses to come forward, most notably to the French daily Le Monde.
The witnesses from within the Algerian security apparatus confirm that the secret police planned bombings in Paris, murdered seven Italian seamen in Algeria and are behind the latest massacres in Algeria. The report in Le Monde was published on the day that the biggest international demonstration in 20 years, demanding a commission of inquiry into the massacres, was held in France. Photocopies of the Observer report were being passed around the crowd in Paris last Sunday. Le Monde - traditionally very close to the French government - ran the story of a new security witness, codename 'Hakim'. He told the paper that the Algerian securite militaire was behind two bomb outrages in Paris in 1995. He told Le Monde: "I confirm that the outrages at Saint-Michel (the Metro station in which eight people were killed and more than 130 wounded) and that of the Maison-Blanche (13 wounded) were committed at the instigation of the action squad of the Directorate of Infiltration and Manipulation and of the Directorate of Information and Security, which is controlled by Mohammed Mediane, better known under the codename 'Tewfik' and General Smain Lamari."
Shock waves from the two revelations caused a huge diplomatic row between Italy and Algeria, with ambassadors being unceremoniously carpeted in Rome and Algiers.
The most damaging blow to the junta was as dramatic as it was unexpected. As soon as he learnt of the detailed charge that its sailors were murdered by the regime in 1994, Italy's foreign minister, Lamberto Dini, went on the warpath.
A Western analyst said: "For the first time since the junta took power in late 1991 it was suddenly on the backfoot, standing accused of killing not just Algerians, but also French, Italians and a British oil worker. This story has internationalized the regime's true behaviour. Western governments know what goes on in Algeria but have remained silent. You might think it is because of Algeria's oil billions."
Then the investigation was reopened. Massimo Palmeri of the prosecutors' office in the Sicilian port of Trapani said last week: "Under Italian law, when a case has been put in abeyance, the prosecutor has to ask the permission of a judge to reopen it. This I did immediately on reading of the new evidence reported by the Observer. I have just learnt that my request has been agreed to."
The seven victims were all seamen aboard the Lucina, a small cargo vessel bringing semolina for couscous from Sardinia to Algeria. They were found with their throats cut aboard the ship. It was docked at the port of Jenjen, near Jijel, east of Algiers. The massacre, which happened on the eve of a G7 summit in Naples, was blamed by the Algerian government on "Islamic extremists".
The Italian prosecuting magistrate will examine several unanswered questions which undermine Algeria's official line. Among them are: why had the Lucina spent so long at Jenjen? By the time its crew was found butchered on July 7, 1994, the small Italian vessel had been in the port for 27 days. Domenico Schiano di Cola, whose brother Antonio, the Lucina's first engineer, was killed, said last week that he had made two "semolina runs" to Jenjen. Neither had lasted more than five or six days. He had spoken to his brother several times by telephone after the Lucina reached Jenjen and been told of repeated delays, due to a lack of manpower or a lack of equipment or transport.
The ship's owner, the Sardinian milling magnate, Massimo Cellino, has said he suspected the authorities deliberately contrived the delays to try to force him to renew a supply contract on favourable terms. Was the Lucina carrying arms? According to a report last week in the newspaper La Repubblica, Algerian and Italian investigators discovered that, although the Lucina was documented as having a load of 2,600 tons, only 2,000 tons could be accounted for. It speculated that the Lucina had been smuggling guns to the Islamic activists and that its crew had been murdered when the deal went awry.
Asked whether arms trafficking had a bearing on the case, Palmeri said last week: "There is no evidence of this in the documents before the court."
Why didn't the Italian government know about the ship's movements? Cellino, said, after the massacre, that he had "rained telephone calls" on the Italian embassy in Algiers to ensure the safety of the crew. But Italy's ambassador at the time, Patrizio Schmildlin, said: "We were not even informed of the presence of the vessel. Contrary to the normal practice, the crew did not notify us of their arrival in Jijel, which is considered a high-risk area."
Was Cellino just a semolina exporter? At the time, the ship's owner was in deep financial and legal trouble. His company, Sem Molini Sardi, sold 70 per cent of its production to Algeria. Eighteen months earlier, he had called an emergency shareholders' meeting to discuss its heavy losses in the first half of 1992. Then, in September 1993, Italy withdrew export credit guarantees for semolina exports to Algeria. Italy's leading financial daily, Il Sole-24 Ore, noted that the move would affect several companies, including Sem, but "is likely to have serious repercussions on the Sardinian firm".
By that time, Cellino was under investigation for an alleged fraud against the European Union and, in May 1994, two months before the killings, he was arrested in connection with the illegal sale of grain supposed to have been stored on the EU's behalf. An investigation by EU inspectors, revealed huge quantities were missing from silos where the stocks were meant to have been kept.
A statement from Italy's revenue guard, the Guardia di Finanza, said Cellino had been charged with having "wrongfully obtained EU subsidies for irregular exports of semolina to certain countries outside the EU". The trial is continuing and his guilt or innocence has yet to be determined.
How could Islamic radicals have got on board? Ships in Algerian ports are subject to strict rules intended to prevent such an attack. Entry to the port of Jenjen was tightly controlled by the military. Schiano di Cola said: "There is a roadblock outside the port manned day and night by military from a nearby naval barracks. They stop cars. They search people. It is just not possible to get in there." He noted there were no signs of forced entry.
"Peter", an Algerian ship's engineer who now lives in London said: "I know the port and there is absolutely no way the Islamic activists could have got into the military zone and past the barracks, unloaded the 600 tons, killed the seamen and got away. Every sailor in Algeria knows the securite militaire killed the Italians."
The Observer revelations also appear to have opened up a clear breach between Italy's diplomats and its intelligence chiefs. Foreign Minister Dini is no stranger to diplomatic niceties. His reaction to the disclosures was to say: "The news that it may have been Algerian secret agents who killed our seamen has been received with a certain scepticism because such an act, apart from being inconceivable, would lead to reprisals against Algeria. We need to be clear about this. We are dealing with a newspaper article. No government has proof. But if it were true, this would cast a very sombre light on relations with Algeria."
A straight denial would have sufficed. His colleague at the defence ministry, the veteran former Christian Democrat Beniamino Andreatta, said, if true, "it would raise the question of the decency of some parts of the Algerian administration".
Meanwhile, a different note was sounded by the Italian prime minister's office. An unidentified source told La Repubblica that the British intelligence services regarded Joseph as unreliable. Apparently on the basis of information received from London, the source told the paper: "The man was not a member of the security services but of an ordinary police unit. In the last few days, he had tried to offer similar information to other British media, asking for a 'reimbursement of expenses' which the other newspapers did not want to pay him." The Observer knows these statements to be false, but cannot reveal some details for reasons of confidentiality and the safety of Joseph and his family. Joseph has had only a cup of tea from this newspaper.
In Algiers, the effect of the Italian reaction was electric. On Tuesday, Italy's ambassador was summoned to the Algerian foreign minister to be told of the government's "astonishment with regard to the credence which the Italian government affords to press allegations". A statement from the Algerians accused the Italian foreign and defence ministers of "extreme irresponsibility".
On the same day, in an apparent effort to salvage the situation, the Italian intelligence services took the unusual step of issuing an independent statement to the press in which they described the account given by Joseph as "a pack of lies".
The row left one more question unanswered. Why, if its intelligence officers did not believe Joseph's version, did the Italian government call in the Algerian ambassador? Later that day came the remarkable 20-line statement sent by the intelligence services to the Ansa news agency, claiming Joseph had been "known for some time as a seller of lies".
The foreign ministry would not be drawn into an open row with its own intelligence service. But its response to the Algerian claims made clear that differences persisted. "No irresponsibility can be imputed when it is a matter of the loss of seven Italian lives," a spokesman said.
In France, the Observer story charging the Algerian secret police with having a hand in the Paris bombs brought forth a series of carefully modulated statements, casting doubt on Joseph's evidence. However, as in Italy, no senior minister has yet endorsed the Algerians' version of events in public.
By John Sweeney and John Hooper (c) London Observer.