Major Spy Scandal is Breaking Italy - Possible Ties to Neocons

A MAJOR SPY SCANDAL IS BREAKING IN ITALY -- PARALLEL, UNOFFICIAL NEO-FASCIST ITALIAN INTELLIGENCE GROUP HAS TIES TO NEO CON INTELLIGENCE APPARATUS IN BUSH ADMINISTRATION INVOLVED IN KIDNAPING MILAN IMAM. GENOA POLICE BUST PRIVATE INTELLIGENCE CELLS AROUND ITALY. POSSIBLE LINKS BETWEEN BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND TERRORIST GROUPS FIGURE IN PROBE.

Washington and Rome, Jul 2, 2005 -- Genoa police have arrested the two leaders of a neo-Fascist unofficial intelligence and "anti-terrorism" police network in Italy and have conducted searches of homes throughout the country in a major crackdown on a group that recruited police and intelligence agents to their cause. The two neo-Fascist leaders -- Gaetano Saya and Riccardo Sindoca -- who reportedly have close ties to both the P-2 (Propaganda Due) Masonic lodge and a secret Cold War network known as Gladio, were arrested. Some 25 members of the regular state police, the Carabinieri, the Frontier police, and the Prison police were placed under official investigation. Tens of searches, including two houses in Genoa, were conducted by police in nine Italian regions: Liguria, Piedmont, Lombardy, Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Lazio, Molise, Sicily and Sardinia. The investigation may soon extend to members of the Italian intelligence service SISMI. In 2004, Saya and Sindoca established the Department of Strategic Anti-Terrorism Studies, which reportedly had links to both the Bush administration and Ariel Sharon's Likud government in Israel.