We publish the story of the investigation written by my colleague Cristina Bassetto, the judicial signature of the Adnkronos who followed and recounted all the Tangentopoli trials as a protagonist. This summary was first published on the occasion of the 20 years of Clean Hands. Monday, February 17, 1992: shortly after 5.30 pm, in his office at the Pio Albergo Trivulzio, Mario Chiesa is arrested for extortion for a bribe of 14 million that had just been delivered to him by a young entrepreneur, Luca Magni, who had developed the operation to ‘frame’ the Church with the then deputy prosecutor in Milan Antonio Di Pietro and the captain of the carabinieri Roberto Zuliani. Thus opens what, the next day, is baptized as the ‘Church case’, but which soon becomes the ‘bribery case’ and, immediately afterwards, ‘Mani Pulite’, the most sensational Italian judicial investigation. But, which began on February 17, 1992, it was only in 1993 that Mani Pulite experienced its maximum expansion, while the First Republic fell under the blows of the guarantee notices, the mafia returned to raise the bar to the sound of massacres and attacks, he economy of the country undergoes a real collapse, and as many as 70 Italian prosecutors initiate threads on corruption in the public administration by developing proceedings against 12,000 people. In the Milanese judicial citadel, investigations raise the bar on the business system and politics. No one seems to be spared: after the ‘Milan system’ and the measures taken by the leaders of the PSI and DC, which ‘dominated’ 1992, starting from 1993 the investigations involve everyone, from the PCI-PDS to the League and , among the giants of the economy, Fiat, Eni, Enel, Olivetti, Montedison, and for the first time also the Fininvest group. In the end, nothing will be the same as before, especially among the parties, the first to ‘fall’ under judicial blows. The year opens with the first ‘no’ from Parliament to the Milan prosecutor’s office and to Antonio Di Pietro: with 180 votes against on January 13, 1993, the Chamber rejected the authorization to proceed requested for Giancarlo Borra, a Christian Democrat deputy from Bergamo, who ended up in the Tangentopoli jerseys and became, in Montecitorio, the ‘case’ on which to test forces in view of well another parliamentary debate, the one for the authorization to proceed requested, in 122 pages of accusations, against the socialist leader Bettino Craxi, reached by a guarantee notice in December 1992. And it is precisely the national secretary of the ‘carnation’ to whipping parliamentary colleagues with a heated speech in the chamber on January 24, in which he denounces ” a full blown game of massacre ” for which he launches the proposal that has long divided justice from politics: a parliamentary commission area of inquiry into the Milanese investigations, above all capable of shedding light on the funding recorded by politics, if possible, in the last twenty years. The proposal falls on deaf ears as the investigations proceed. One after another the national secretaries of the parties ‘leave’ Psi, in via Tomacelli in Rome. Craxi speaks of a “coup”. But for him it is the beginning of the end: on 9 February he leaves the party secretariat which, for about three months, will be run by the former Uil secretary Giorgio Benvenuto, and who will then be replaced by Ottaviano Del Turco. Bettino Craxi is only the first of the national secretaries of the pentapartite to ‘leave’ their direction following the Milanese inquiries. On February 25, it is Giorgio La Malfa’s turn: accused of illegal financing, the politician leaves the national secretariat of the Republican Party. A few days later it was Ciriaco De Mita, former national secretary of the DC, who left the presidency of the bicameral commission for reforms, following the scandal investigation into the reconstruction of Irpinia involving his brother Michele. Not even two weeks later Renato Altissimo resigns from the secretariat of the Liberal Party. The end of March marks the end of the PSDI secretariat for Carlo Vizzini. In June the DC is dissolved: on the 22nd of that month the leader of the referendum movement Mario Segni leaves Piazza del Gesu ‘. The day after, the secretary Mino Martinazzoli decrees the end of the biancofiore. The geography of Italian parties is falling apart. And politics tries to reorganize itself, starting with some reforms aimed at tackling the corruption chapter, and which represents an attempt to open a dialogue with the judiciary. In 1993, in fact, three significant legislative measures ‘of the times’ were approved. The Merloni law, first of all, aimed at reorganizing the immense matter of contracts on the basis of more transparent rules and which provides for the cancellation from the register of builders for the corrupt. Then there is the reform launched in the public administration which establishes quantitative and qualitative standards of administrative behavior, initiates self-certification, suddenly cancels a series of inter-ministerial committees, as many as seventy collegiate bodies and the Ministry of Merchant Marine. But the real revolution comes with the reform of article 68 of the Constitution which regulates the guarantees of the elect. abstained, after only in the previous year, 1992, the Chambers had received something like 619 requests for authorization to proceed. Thus the ban on investigating parliamentarians disappears unless the Chambers themselves have given their consent. The authorization to proceed remains only for arrest ” except in execution of an irrevocable sentence ”, or if the parliamentarian in question ” is caught in the act of committing a crime for which the ‘compulsory arrest in the act’ ‘. Furthermore, the authorization remains necessary to be able to carry out personal and home searches, and to intercept, in any form, conversations, communications or correspondence referring to a parliamentarian. But that politics was ready to renounce one of its important benefits, it was already understood in the previous summer when, in early August, it was called to decide on four other requests for authorizations to proceed sent by the Milan Public Prosecutor against by Bettino Craxi, and despite the fierce defense of the former socialist secretary, the assembly, by majority, had decided for the ‘yes’, essentially abandoning the socialist leader to his fate. , the national economy is on the brink. An index for all is the value of the lira which slowly but steadily crumbles, to the point of losing 25 per cent less than the devaluation recorded in September 1992. Consumption is falling as never before, since the postwar period. then, and the gross domestic product falls by 1.2%. From that moment on, it will no longer be possible not to acknowledge the economic crisis. It is no coincidence that from 1993 onwards almost all the financial laws will impose on the country a set of savings and cuts of trillions, starting with public employees, the first to be filed in substantial terms of guarantees and privileges. At the same time the state tries to react to the deficit by giving way to the privatization of important strong public powers such as IRI, ENI and ENEL. In the meantime, the investigations expanded beyond the confines of politics and in the autumn of 1993 the Milanese judge Diego Curto was arrested. order: on April 21, 1994, 80 men of the Guardia di Finanza and 300 personalities of the industry were accused of corruption. In June it was discovered that Fininvest was also involved in the investigation of the so-called ‘dirty flames’. A few days later, a Fiat manager admitted the corruption in a letter to a newspaper. In October the then Minister Biondi starts the first inspection against the judges, but for the inspectors, after long interrogations, the investigations of the pool are all correct. In November, investigators found important evidence by searching the home of one of Fininvest’s lawyers and ex-officer of the GDF, Massimo Maria Berruti: this is proof, according to the pool, that Berlusconi would have ordered to pollute the evidence on Fininvest corruption. On November 21, on the orders of chief prosecutor Francesco Saverio Borrelli, the carabinieri notify Berlusconi by telephone of the invitation to appear and communicate two of the three charges attributed to him. The news is revealed exclusively in India by Corriere della Sera and the Knight accuses the magistrates of having violated the secret of the investigation, passing the news to the newspaper. The investigations of the Brescia prosecutor’s office will see the magistrates acquitted of the accusation of violation of the secret (because the secret falls when the interested party becomes aware of the invitation to appear) and Berlusconi’s accusations are soon dismissed. November, the insurer Giancarlo Gorrini goes to the Ministry of Justice and denounces Di Pietro: he allegedly blackmailed him and demanded a long list of favors: a loan of 100 million without interest, a Mercedes, custody to his wife, lawyer Susanna Mazzoleni, of all the lawsuits of her company, the assumption of all the debts contracted to the horse races by Eleuterio Rea. The next day, Biondi starts a parallel investigation into the magistrate. Judge De Biasi is in charge of conducting the investigation. On November 26, Di Pietro is warned that the Ministry is preparing a ‘poisoned meatball’. After consulting with his colleagues in the pool, he decides to draw up a report to be sent to the CSM. Then he changes his mind and on December 6, after the last indictment for the Enimont trial, he takes off his toga and resigns from the judiciary with a heartfelt letter: “I go on tiptoe with death in my heart”. It is the end of Clean Hands. A few days later, the Berlusconi government falls. The investigation into the Gdf and ‘its’ general Giuseppe Cerciello is transferred from the Court of Cassation to Brescia. De Biasi closes the investigation into Di Pietro, exonerating him completely: the facts have no disciplinary relevance. (by Cristina Bassetto)