“In the Giletti case, I still think that these crises can only be overcome with clarity.”
It was Enrico Mentana who wrote it on his social profiles on the afternoon of April 17, announcing that he was thinking of a program “that addresses all the most burning issues” that have arisen “around this story”.
‘I know that Giletti did not inform the publisher Cairo of the ghost photograph Baiardo gave him, nor of the subsequent summons by the Florentine prosecutors. It is one of a publisher’s prerogatives to suspend a program», stresses Mentana, «but perhaps Urbano Cairo could not have imagined that then all these elements would appear that risk interrupting Non è l’Arena another sign admit” .
Massimo Giletti, Mentana continues, “is still under contract and Sundays are free. So for next Sunday we are thinking of a program that addresses all the hottest topics that have emerged in connection with this affair, a fitting testimony that nothing remains hidden from us, especially when it comes to the Mafia. And who knows what then…».
Mentana will be working on the program with La7’s director Andrea Salerno and it’s not out of the question that Giletti will also be on the show.
The reasons for the suspension of the program
In the past few days, Giletti had said that “everything would be clarified at the right time” about the reasons for the suspension of his program. The journalist would have been interviewed twice in recent weeks as a person informed of the facts by the Florence Public Prosecutor’s Office, which is also investigating the 1993 mafia massacres.
The judges are investigating the involvement of Salvatore Baiardo – ex factotum of the Graviano brothers, the bosses who wanted the death of Don Pino Puglisi – in “Non è l’Arena”, which he foresaw last November with two months in advance the Capture of Matteo Messina Denaro. In particular, attempts are being made to verify some of Baiardo’s intercepted statements and the fees (we’re talking about tens of thousands of euros here) for television participation.
The decision to host Baiardo and the theses put forward in the program about the arrest of Messina Denaro, although they have caused some dissatisfaction inside and outside the company, in no way would form the basis of the decision, the conversation to suspend.
The contract linking Giletti with La7 would have expired at the end of the season and rumors of contacts for a move to Rai weighed on a possible extension. “Everyone has their own version,” reiterates Giletti, who joined La7 in 2017 after disagreements with Rai that led to his thirty-year departure.
Baiardo’s role
Although his television happiness was born with performances at Non è l’Arena, “Baiardo with Giletti and his show collapsed for weeks”, Lara Sirignano wrote here:
‘Among the (many) questions the judges are calling Baiardo to account is a spring 1992 photo in front of the TNT of Capaci and Via D’Amelio: a snapshot that the former aide to the Brancaccio bosses Giletti should have shown and who he would immortalize, he himself tells the journalist, without knowing that he was intercepted, Silvio Berlusconi, the boss Giuseppe Graviano and the general of the Carabinieri Francesco Delfino. The shot was reportedly shown to the conductor as proof that, despite his reputation as a cheater, Baiardo is not bluffing when he says he knows about the relationship between the FI leader and Cosa nostra. Giletti saw the snap (which dates back to the 1990s and was allegedly “stolen”, perhaps with the intention of making some money from it) and recognized the former prime minister in the picture along with two men. In the end, however, it never aired because the journalist asked for much more feedback. In order to give it to La7, Baiardo would not have asked for anything, at least in principle, “but I do not rule out that he wanted money,” said the conductor himself to the prosecutor. When asked, however, the ice cream seller denied everything despite the interceptions. And from his sanctuary in Trabia he announces new burning revelations. In short, a yellow. At which point the former Prime Minister’s lawyer, Giorgio Perroni, intervened and spoke of “absurd allegations by the alleged mafia against Berlusconi, which have always proved false and instrumental. So much so that each time the same investigators had to admit they were unfounded”».