Honorary judge rules FAO executive's criminal case against Insider should proceed despite procedural error

 ROME – An ‘honorary judge’ has ruled that the trail of Italian Insider’s chief editor on charges of allefgedly threatening the FAO chief economist, Maxim Torero, should go ahead in October despite strong defence objections that the UN executive failed to make a formal denuncia, which normally would have meant the case being thrown out because of a major procedural error.

 The honorary judge Lorenzo Brigato made the bizarre ruling Thursday during a ‘predibattimento’ hearing at the Rome Tribunal of the case brought against Insider editor John Phillips by Torero. Defence lawyer manrico Andreozzi pointed out that Torero, who was not present at the hearing, had only presented an esposto regarding the Insider article that he claims threatened him, and not a denuncia. An honorary judge is a magistrate, usually a lawyer, drafted in to stand in for a professional judge when there is a shortage of professional judges.

 Brigato for reasons best known to himself claimed that the esposto ‘had all the characteristics of a querela’ and ordered that the case be heard at the Tribunal Oct. 1 against Phillips on criminal charges of threatening Torero.

The article quoted a diplomat as quipping that ‘in an authoritarian regime, someone like that would be shot,’ which Torero’s lawyer claims absurdly was a threat against the Peruvian assistant director general.

 The case is the latest in a rash of legal harassment brought by the FAO against Phillips to try and silence the Insider’s coverage of the UN agency.