The curtain remains unturned on the judicial case surrounding the murder of TG3 journalist Ilaria Alpi and her cameraman Miran Hrovatin, killed in Mogadishu on March 20, 1994. The Rome investigating judge has denied the prosecutor's request to dismiss the case, ordering a new phase of the investigation. These investigations must be completed within the next 180 days. The rejection of the dismissal, which comes just days after the death of Ilaria's mother, Luciana, was also based on the transcript of a wiretap between two Somali citizens, included in the documents of an investigation by the Florence prosecutor's office and sent to Piazzale Clodio last April, just before the hearing before the investigating judge. In the conversation, the two men, speaking about what happened in Mogadishu, stated that Ilaria "was killed by the Italians." The Prosecutor's Office believed this conversation did not constitute sufficient evidence to reopen the investigation, but investigating judge Andrea Fanelli believes this is not the case. The judge, therefore, asks the prosecutors to interview the participants in the wiretap, specifically Abdi Badre Hayle, "to determine who issued the order to pay the sum of $40,000 to lawyer Duale and how he knew it was 'for the Hashi matter.'" The investigating judge also requests to interview "Mohamed Geddi Bashir to determine from whom he received the information," the investigating judge's document states, "that Hashi Omar Hassan (finally sentenced to 26 years and later acquitted in the review process) had been wrongfully convicted of the murder of Ilaria Alpi, and that she had actually been killed by Italian soldiers." The requests also include a hearing with lawyer Douglas Duale to determine whether "he was actually paid money by the Somali government or other parties for the defense of Hashi Omar Hassan." Finally, the judge cites a 1997 SISDE report and specifically asks the investigators to interview "the confidential source" cited in that report "subject to a new request to the acting director regarding the current possibility of disclosing his personal details." The intelligence report "reveals the involvement of businessman Giancarlo Marocchino in the double homicide as well as in arms trafficking." In this regard, investigating judge Andrea Fanelli cites his colleague, Emanuele Cersosimo, who, with an order dated December 2, 2007, had requested that the confidential source from the then civilian secret service be interviewed, but "the Ministry of the Interior responded, in a note dated April 1, 2008, that ongoing needs to protect the source itself did not allow for the provision of evidence revealing his identity." After more than ten years, "it seems useful to verify the persistence of the reasons for secrecy cited by the SISDE," Fanelli concludes.
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