Premier Giorgia Meloni in her guise as
heroic Hobbit Frodo freed Libyan alleged war criminal Osama
Almasri in the part of Lord of the Rings supervillain Sauron,
opposition More Europe (+ Europa) leader Riccardo Magi said
after ministers briefed the House on why the judicial police
chief and alleged murderer and rapist was sprung from jail and
flown back to Tripoli to a hero's welcome last month.
Meloni's sister Arianna told a rally of her rightwing Brothers
of Italy (FdI) party, which is steeped in Good vs Evil Tolkien
lore and many of whose members attended Hobbit Camps as
youngsters, at the weekend that "Giorgia is our Frodo and we are
the Fellowship of the Ring, the Ring is heavy, we have to help
her in the hard toil of carrying it without wearing it
ourselves, that's what we've always vowed".
Magi said after Justice Minister Carlo Nordio and Interior
Minister Matteo Piantedosi justified Almasri's release and
attacked politicians and magistrates who had criticised it, that
the absent Meloni should have spoken in their stead as it was
she who allegedly took the decision to free the Libyan general.
"That empty chair in the middle of the government benches is an
offence not only to Parliament but to international justice," he
said.
"If Giorgia Meloni is Frodo, the ring of power has gone to her
head and has freed Sauron Almasri".
Nordio and Piantedosi said there were crucial errors in the
International Criminal Court warrant for Almasri and that Rome
had not been blackmailed into returning a man who the opposition
says is a key cog in the Italian-funded machinery to stop
migrants leaving the north African country.
Magi added:
"We have heard the Minister of Justice wearing the clothes of
the public defender of what the Minister of the Interior has
defined as a dangerous character".
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
