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The former president of the Chamber Gianfranco Fini, 72 years old, was sentenced at first instance to 2 years and 8 months in prison in the trial of a large judicial affair known as the “Tulliani case”. The judges also sentenced Fini’s partner, Elisabetta Tulliani, to 5 years in prison, his brother-in-law Giancarlo Tulliani to 6 years and his father-in-law Sergio Tulliani to 5 years. In the hearing last March 18, the public prosecutor had asked for heavier sentences: 8 years for the former president of the Chamber, 9 years for his partner, 10 years for Giancarlo Tulliani and 5 years for Sergio Tulliani, all accused of money laundering.
At the center of the trial was a house located in Monte Carlo, in the principality of Monaco, bequeathed by Anna Maria Colleoni – descendant of a noble family – to the National Alliance, the of which Fini was president from its foundation in 1995 until 2008.
The long investigations made it possible to reconstruct the changes in ownership of the house purchased in 2008 by the brother of Fini’s partner, Giancarlo Tulliani, through offshore companies attributable to the entrepreneur Francesco Corallo who in previous years had become very rich thanks to a state concession obtained in 2004 to install tens of thousands of slot machines in Italy. In 2019 Corallo was sent to trial by the Rome prosecutor’s office on charges of criminal association aimed at money laundering, embezzlement and tax evasion.
The accusation from the Rome prosecutor’s office concerned in particular the selling price of the house, much lower than the real estate value, and the origin of the money, according to the magistrates placed by Corallo to be laundered as it was the result of illicit deals. The house was in fact purchased for just over 300 thousand euros through an offshore company registered in the name of Giancarlo Tulliani, actually owned by Corallo, who first rented the house to Tulliani and then resold it for 1.36 million euros to a company with headquarters in Switzerland owned by Tulliani himself, who in turn received the money for the transaction from a Corallo collaborator, Rudolf Baetsen.
In an initial investigation launched in August 2010, the Rome prosecutor’s office hypothesized the crime of embezzlement and aggravated fraud, charges that were later dismissed because the regularity of the sale by Alleanza Nazionale was established. During the investigations Fini claimed that only after the sale, in 2010, did he discover that the owner of the house was his brother-in-law.
The subsequent investigation was opened for money laundering. The magistrates accused Fini of being aware of the illicit origin of the money and of knowingly deciding to sell the Monte Carlo house to the company offshore by Tulliani. During the hearings of the trial Fini always maintained that he had been deceived by his brother-in-law and his partner. “Only years later I learned that the owner of the house was Tulliani and I broke off relations with him,” he said.
Regarding his partner Elisabetta, Fini said he was “hurt” by her behavior: “From the trial documents it emerged that she was co-owner of the house and then I also learned that her brother transferred to her part of the proceeds from the sale. All facts that I didn’t know before.”
Leaving the court, Fini said he was not disappointed because the only charge for which the judges found him guilty was the authorization to sell the apartment. “I’m leaving more serene than you might think after 7 years of trials,” Fini said. «I remind myself that, for a similar event, a complaint against me was dismissed by the Rome prosecutor’s office. After so much talk, after so much controversy, so many accusations, so much denigration from a political point of view. Responsible for what? To have authorized the sale. It’s not clear to me what the crime consists of.”
– Read also: Why are we talking about the “Tulliani case” again?
