Director and editor of L’Informazione of San Marino on trial: “Prosecuted for having done our job seriously”
“Journalists who do their job end up on trial in San Marino”.
The San Marino newspaper “L’Informazione di San Marino”explaining in a note that “it will start on 8 September the trial of two journalists accused of prohibition of publication“.
To end up on trial, “which was given impetus by the Congress of State (the government of San Marino) and the Central Bank, are the journalists Carlo Filippini and Antonio Fabbrirespectively director and editor of the daily newspaper ‘L’informazione di San Marino’“.
The accusation against Filippini and Fabbri is that of “having published true news, of public interest, in full respect of continence and expository relevance; news which, however, is evidently unwelcome to those in power, not having to be published ”.
And again: “But the most serious anomaly of this process, which has the flavor of an intimidating pressure towards freedom of the press and the right of the press, is that access to the information then published in the articles was allowed following request from the journalist who, doing his job, asked the official to be able to verify and investigate the news ”.
The San Marino daily, in the same press release, briefly listing the facts: “In April 2019, news emerged of an investigation into the president of the Central Bank of San Marino (Bcsm), Catia Tomasetti, and a well-known Italian politician, Sandro Gozi, for a consultancy of 10 thousand euros per month in favor of the latter. The investigation into unfaithful administration, which had considerable resonance not only at the San Marino level but also in the Italian and international national media, was archived about a year later. The Central Bank sends a press release in which it gives notice of the archiving, without disclosing the reasons. The journalist then decides to investigate the reasons for the dismissal of the case that had had a clamor story. He therefore asks to entrust the Criminal Chancellery of the Single Court of San Marino to be able to access the archived file, as required by law. The request is motivated by the editor who clearly explains the purpose of the journalistic investigation. The file is given to him, subject to the authorization of the magistrate, with the exception of the parts covered by banking secrecy. From the consultation of the file, the journalist notes that the dismissal measure reports that for the investigator there were no criminal details for the indictment, but details of pre-eminent public interest emerge such as the onerousness of the advice, the statements of the members of the government to which the president of Bcsm, dull of being investigated, reminded them that she had always met the then head of the Italian secret services, talking to him about the San Marino banking system, and Italian politicians. Now, that the top of the Central Bank of a country talks with the head of the secret services of another country, it is a news of evident and preeminent interest made public, which the journalist and the newspaper have known, as well as the reasons for the filing of the survey that have been published “.
Thus, “for having done their job, the journalists were accused and sent to trial for ‘publication of secret documents relating to a criminal case'”. Now, “apart from the fact that the San Marino law provides that the file of an archived proceeding is not all secret, access to the file itself was authorized on the basis of a regular and official request submitted to the Chancellery”.
“Everyone can appreciate how much honor the Ancient Land of Freedom does to send a trial of journalists who have done their job seriously exercising the task of informing, sanctioned by human rights and recognized in democratic states and also by the San Marino laws which, evidently, this time they have been put aside ”, comments“ The Information of San Marino ”.