INTERVIEW with Roberto De Vita: Italy’s espionage scandal

New Europe (NE): How would you define the documents that the accused officer gave to the Russians? What kind of access did he have to classified documents?

Roberto De Vita (RDV): First, we have to take into consideration the sort of documents available to Biot. Since the beginning of the case, when he was arrested, Boit was very clear that he never had access to documents that were deemed “state secrets” or highly classified. He also claimed not to have access to information or documents that concerned national security or operational activities. Biot is telling the truth in this regard. We could autonomously verify which documents he could actually access in his position. It is easy to verify what kind of information is being transited on a daily basis from like Biot. I have to reiterate that in terms of secret and classified documents, there are very rigorous procedures when giving permission to individuals to have this access. It is easy to verify all this because there is a specific office that tracks all classified material that could be compromised. It is possible to concretely verify which secret information Biot had access to. The documents’ author can easily be confirmed, as well as who has security clearance to access the information. Nobody can deny this fact, and because of this, we excluded the possibility that highly sensitive documents could have been in the hands of Biot. The seized documents have yet to be fully scrutinized by the presiding judge. What was only highlighted is that the documents are listed as ‘highly confidential’, and therefore as an assumption, they are supposed to be relevant in terms of national security. In this case, I don’t think that this is the correct way to handle this matter. To give you a better clarification on this, we should consider what Lorenzo Guerini, the Italian Defense Minister, said in front of the parliament’s defense committee: “The officer had a position that authorized him to see classified material, but his responsibilities did not feature command or management activities. This led him to have access to evaluation and policy documents, but not to documents for the management of operations or details about the capabilities of NATO”. This speech from the Defense Minister confirms that the security of the country and of NATO was never put in danger. The place where Biot was working was not an operational command, and it is not dealing with strategic detailed activities, but it is only dealing with policies and producing analyses, but not from an intelligence point of view. The problem here is that this case started from an assumption. An Italian officer was caught in a car with a Russian diplomat. Without trying to understand. through different layers, where the truth was. It is then important to say that highly classified documents can’t be seen on a PC because they undergo another procedure. They must be printed. My client didn’t have permission to print them. There has been a communication mistake, at the beginning of this case, that had a negative impact on my client, but also on public opinion at an international level.

NE: As the Russian Embassy was involved in the case, what was the relationship between your client and the Russian diplomats?

RDV: First of all, there wasn’t any relationship between my client and the Russian citizen in question, or other countries’ embassies or consulates. Some media reported that my client met a Russian officer during a reception at an embassy, about this I can stress that Biot never entered a Russian Embassy or Consulate, or any other countries’ diplomatic missions. In the investigation file, this fact was never mentioned. It was only in the news, I don’t know then why the media said that and I don’t know what their sources were. As we can trace everything, I can also exclude the possibility that my client could have ever met the Russian official at a reception in an Italian institutional place. My client confirmed then that he never took part in such events. About the relationship with the Russian embassy official, my client will explain everything in detail during the next interrogation session.

NE: Do you think that your client could have been in such a difficult economic situation as to justify committing a potentially criminal act like handing over secrets to an adversary?

RVD: Of course the economic situation is very difficult in the family. These problems were related to the disability of his youngest daughter. This is the first issue, but the other idea is to understand if it was worth it for him to commit this kind of crime. You have to know that for this crime you could get a life sentence. So, if this was true, should we wonder why he supposedly did it for only €5,000? The answer is very clear, I think.

NE: One element that the media underlined was the use of four different sim cards by your client, can you tell me more about this?

RDV: It is very simple, the sim cards were registered for different family members. From the communications and from the places where they were, it’s clear that they were being used by his sons. Obviously, he had his own phone. The other phones were being used by other family members. Sometimes people might have more than one sim card for various reasons.

NE: You had the chance to discuss these issues with important American journalists about the perception on the other side of the Atlantic about the suspected involvement of a NATO ally passing on secret information to the Russians regarding NATO. What is your feeling about that?