Paolo Guzzanti (August 1, 1940) is an Italian journalist and politician. He was previously a member of the Italian Socialist Party.
Biography
Born in Rome, is the nephew of Elio Guzzanti and father to actors Corrado, Sabina and Caterina.
As a journalist he worked for L'Avanti!, La Repubblica (of which he was co-founder) and La Stampa. He also hosted the first season of TV show Chi l'ha visto?. Currently he is an editorialist of Paolo Berlusconi's Il Giornale (he was deputy director before and for Panorama, also owned by Berlusconi.
He was elected to the Italian Parliament for Forza Italia. From 2002 to 2006 he was president of the Mitrokhin Commission, a parliamentary commission which was entrusted of investigations about the role of KGB in Italy. The commission, since the very beginning, received heavy criticism[1] as it was pointed out that its main role seemed only that to discredit the former Italian Communist Party. According to an interview of former KGB agent Yevgeny Limarev published on La Repubblica[2], Italian left-winged politicians to be discredited included Romano Prodi, Massimo D'Alema and Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio. The commission was closed in 2006 without any concrete result given.
On December 1 2006 Italian Mario Scaramella, a contact of dead former spy Alexander Litvinenko, tests positive for polonium-210. Mr Scaramella is involved in an Italian parliamentary inquiry into KGB activity and was sufficiently worried by the contents of an e-mail to ask for advice from Mr Litvinenko. The e-mail said that he, Mr Litvinenko and an Italian senator, Paolo Guzzanti, were possible targets for assassination[3].
In 2009 Paolo Guzzanti published a book [4] where he stated that Litvinenko told the Mitrokhin Commission about a connection between Romano Prodi and Soviet KGB, post-Soviet FSB.[5] He believed that Litvinenko was killed because of Mitrokhin Commission and that Vladimir Putin had an interest in ruining the commission.
On February 2, 2009 he left People of Freedom and joined Italian liberal party. He was elected deputy secretary on February 20.
Notes
- ^ "Mitrokhin, un’arma contro Prodi". L'Unità. December 1, 2006. pp. 1, 3.
- ^ Reuters, November 28 2006[1]
- ^ BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6199464.stm
- ^ Guzzanti, Paolo (2009) (in Italian). Il mio agente Sasha. La Russia di Putin e l'Italia di Berlusconi ai tempi della seconda guerra fredda. Aliberti. pp. 458. ISBN 9788874245178.
- ^ Anastasiya Kirilenko (November 23, 2009). ""Мой агент Саша" Литвиненко" (in Russian). Radio Liberty. http://www.svobodanews.ru/content/article/1885663.html. Retrieved 2009-11-23. (interview with Paolo Guzzanti)
| Assembly seats | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Title jointly held |
Member of the Italian Senate Legislatures XIV, XV 2001 - 2008 |
Succeeded by Title jointly held |
| Preceded by Title jointly held |
Member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies Legislatures XVI 2008 - present |
Incumbent |
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