Thursday, September 07, 2006

A fascinating diversion

Poor Grub Street got ignored today while I crafted a couple of feature pieces from GP Background Stories.

I had commented recently on Silvio Berlusconi, then came across a piece about him being prosecuted in Spain after they decided his immunity no longer held.

I got curious about Silvio's sins so when and did a bit of looking. The result is at Battling Berlusconi faces immunity deficiency

Try this lot : There have been 13 criminal cases against Berlusconi. Among the accusations was Berlusconi's alleged complicity in 2 car bombings back in 1992. Those were the ones that killed anti-Mafia judges Falcone and Borsellino together with their police escorts.

received an initial sentence total of 77 months from 3 of these cases. Sixteen months were dropped after he won an appeal.

The remaining 61 months were eventually annulled by Italy's statutory law of time limitations.

Apart from the normal daily additions to the site I thought that would suffice. But a contact in Chicago had different thoughts and got me running on a story about BP Amoco Corporations; the new thugs?

The company took on an immigrant Pakistani gas station operator in Chicago. Apparently some execs had already been leaning on him for bribes and the like. Then they decided to close down his 10 leases. He bit back and sued them for extortion and racketeering. Great story, but I never did find out what happened in the end.

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