Today, 28 June 2017, recalling Antonio Attianese with a minute of recollection, the president Scanu Gian Piero has opened a new session of the parliamentary commission of inquiry on the effects of the use of depleted uranium with the hearing of the testimony of Giuseppe Carofiglio, Marshal in retirement of the Guardia di Finanza, as a person informed of the facts. It was convened following his statements made several times in the national press in which he stated that Italy had depleted uranium munitions already made by the 1994.
Invited to cite the sources, acts and news in his possession, Carofiglio said that in March 1993 carried out a course for gunsmiths and then arrived in the X Legion of the GdF in Naples.
"When I arrived in the new destination I started to realize the situation of weapons and ammunition of the nucleus of which I had become responsible and the previous gunsmith, the one I replaced, told me that there were 'strange' ammunition of which he had not even arrived the accounting charge and that, before being stored at the depot of the Split Mountain, had been stored in the armory.The Broken Mountain is a deposit of the Navy ammunition owned by each Armed Force that intends to deposit them, here are stored ammunition for ordinary weapons I also began to take an interest in these 'strange' ammunition and went personally to check: in the armories we could enter only the gunsmiths or the Legion Commander, I saw twenty boxes of ammunition near the radioactive symbol, I say Twenty crates as they were 576 uranium ammunition in all, then contained in twenty boxes. there was also written U 238 and I took pictures because I became aware of it. To better understand the situation, having my own geiger counter albeit very simple, I went to measure the amount of radioactivity and the LEDs remained on all and at most. I worried even more and I contacted the colleagues of the General Command - Ufficio del Geneale, which depended on all the armories of the Guardia di Finanza in Italy. They sent me a NATO handbook describing the methods of conservation and action in case of emergency (for example of fire) in the presence of radioactive material and I, reading the very high risks, I realized my fears. "Displayed to the Commission, this manual was acquired in the documents.
"From the Command they moved and got into agitation, in fact they sent Environmental Authority personnel (AMPA) sent from Rome without us being informed to investigate the Navy depot, the guard dismissed said staff as he had not had communicated that they would come in. The General Command thus sent us a letter stating that they would inspect the experts, so they came back and we all went to look, we were all without proper precautions, normal clothes, and once we arrived on the spot, the employees went away stating that it was necessary to be protected in order to be able to approach safely those boxes .. In the report that they counted two dozens of crates with the label bearing the contents of the isotope uranium 238"The documentation made by the Supervisory Board is then purchased by the Commission.
After that inspection, to which they did not follow, we came into contact with the Environmental Supervisory Board and ordered an extraordinary exercise. Meanwhile, the ammunition continued to remain in the arsenal of the Split Mountain. I proposed to the colonel commander to bring them to a safe deposit but was not considered a valid solution because he had already opted for the exercise that would have to use them.
The President of the Commission intervenes and asks "You, as per Fatto Quotidiano, say that the ammunition was of Italian manufacture, how do you say?"
"Breda Meccanica Bresciana, Perchiera del Garda, is written on ammunition and I have made five photographs and I can produce them"The images are then acquired."Later I then found a letter of 27 1994 January with which the Breda responded to a missive of 24 January 1994 where it confirmed the production of depleted uranium ammunition and zirconium and provided a 'user manual' for storage drawn up in the 1989"All this was immediately acquired in the deeds.
"As I said in July 1994 was ordered by the General Command an exercise and in the dispatch sent to us, which I brought in copy, we ordered the use of 576 shots ATI (uranium) and 96 shots TP (exercise) 'to be used for cleaning the weapon from any residuals'. The whole exercise was then to be conducted at sea and with work gloves. The will was indeed to get rid of the sea, I presume in the stretch of water between Pontius and Ventotene, which was the shooting range, of depleted uranium munitions. In my opinion it is possible that similar munitions have also exploded in the other two military polygons of Teulada and Quirra. I do not exclude it but I can not even confirm it"The dispatch of the General Command was also fully acquired including the minutes of the naval units confirming that they had used these munitions in practice.
At this point, the Commission Mauro Pili requested that the Marshal should better focus on the destination of the ammunition specifying whether they were also used by the Navy. To this Carofiglio said that this ammunition came from the armament of the patrollers that before Naples were moored in La Spezia and that being ammunition from war it was particularly strange that it was on a boat of the Guardia di Finanza, which would not be used as he has no office duties that can justify the possession of these ammunitions. Paolo Cova then asked if the exercise had been done by the Navy or Finance and this was confirmed that everything was conducted by the naval units of the Guardia di Finanza. Giulia Grillo then asked if Carofiglio later learned of further discoveries of depleted uranium munitions, but the witness only imagined the potential.
Gianluca Rizzo then asked if the military leaders knew about the presence of those munitions and Carofiglio replied in the affirmative. "There were also about 1500 zirconium ammo ammunition, never used, which I assume are still in the disposition of the same deposit of the Split Mountain"To the question of why he only talks about Maria Chiara Carrozza, she answered"I speak only now to a parliamentary commission because only now I realized that there is an organ that actually wants reality to emerge, it is not a simple thing to talk about all this"Donatella Duranti then asked if the NATO manual could already be in the possession of the Italian Army and Carofiglio responded"it is unimaginable that it was not in the Army's dispositions, do you think that for armaments we use an army general because those of the Army certainly mean better than us weapons"The examination concluded Lacquaniti Luigi who asked if the witness had been threatened but the marshal responded negatively and to the next question of where to look for any residuals he replied"in my opinion, to the shipyards of Spezia, from Finmeccanica".
The session is then postponed to the 5 July at 14.30 for a subsequent hearing to implement the testimony of today.
