Luigi de Magistris (born 20 June 1967) is an Italian politician and a former

prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal tria ...

. He has been

mayor of Naples The mayor of Naples is an elected politician who, along with the Naples’s City Council of 40 members, is accountable for the strategic government of Naples. The following is a list of Mayors of Naples, Italy. List Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ...

from 2011 to 2021, and a

member of the European Parliament A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...

from 2009 to 2011.

Biography

He started his career as a public prosecutor in 1995 and worked in Naples from 1998 to 2002. He was deputy public prosecutor in

Catanzaro Catanzaro (, or ; scn, label= Catanzarese, Catanzaru ; , or , ''Katastaríoi Lokrói''; ; la, Catacium), also known as the "City of the two Seas", is an Italian city of 86,183 inhabitants (2020), the capital of the Calabria region and of its p ...

from 2002 to 2009De Magistris non è più magistrato
'' Corriere della Sera'', 19 November 2009. and was a

Member of the European Parliament A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...

(MEP). His investigations have frequently focused on links between politicians and the

Italian Mafia Organized crime in Italy and its criminal organizations have been prevalent in Italy, especially Southern Italy, for centuries and have affected the social and economic life of many Italian regions since at least the 19th century. There are six ...

. In 2011, de Magistris ran for the Mayor of Naples as the candidate of

Italy of Values Italy of Values ( it, Italia dei Valori, IdV) is a populist and anti-corruption political party in Italy. The party was founded in 1998 by former '' Mani pulite'' prosecutor Antonio Di Pietro, who entered politics in 1996 and finally left the p ...

. He won in the second round, defeating the right-wing candidate Gianni Lettieri with 65% of the vote. As his investigations involved famous names such as

Romano Prodi Romano Antonio Prodi (; born 9 August 1939) is an Italian politician, economist, academic, senior civil servant, and business executive who served as the tenth president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. He served twice as Pr ...

, former Italian prime Minister, and

Clemente Mastella Mario Clemente Mastella (born 5 February 1947) is an Italian politician who has served as the mayor of Benevento since 20 June 2016. He is the leader of Union of Democrats for Europe, a minor centrist Italian party. He was Minister of Labour i ...

, former Italian Minister of Justice, de Magistris has been at the centre of media controversy. The Minister of Justice

asked de Magistris to be transferred because he had allegedly revealed Mastella's name as well as those of other Italian politicians apparently involved in his investigations.Crime in southern Italy
, The Economist, 16 August 2007. De Magistris appeared before the CSM (the governing board of the magistracy) in January 2008 to defend himself against the serious allegations of the Minister and his inspectors. Luigi de Magistris has been the second most voted Italian politician in 2009 European elections. In 2015, he founded the left-wing party Democracy and Autonomy. In 2016, he won a second mandate as Mayor of Naples, after obtaining 42% of the votes in the first round and 66% of the votes in a runoff against centre-right candidate Gianni Lettieri, the same candidate he had defeated five years earlier. In 2017 he obtained the 'Valerioti-Impastato' award for his work against crime and corruption. In 2021, he announced he would run as president of

Calabria , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

in the upcoming snap regional election to replace the late

Jole Santelli Jole Santelli (28 December 1968 – 15 October 2020) was an Italian politician. A member of Forza Italia, she was the President of Calabria from 15 February 2020 until her death eight months later. Biography After graduating in Law at the Sap ...

. In 2022 he launched People's Union. The coalition will participate in the

2022 general election The following elections are scheduled to occur in 2022. The National Democratic Institute also maintains a calendar of elections around the world. * 2022 United Nations Security Council election * 2022 national electoral calendar * 2022 local ...

Famous investigations

While in Catanzaro, he worked for several years on the "Poseidone" investigation into misuse by politicians of European Community subsidies for sewage filter systems and other business projects in Calabria. The "Poseidone" case was taken away from Luigi de Magistris, and as was the "Why Not" investigation in which the names of well-known politicians have come up. This investigation was due to be wound up after nearly two years and the persons involved formally indicted. Another case that de Magistris has been involved with is "Le Toghe Lucane", in Basilicata. One of the people to be questioned by de Magistris was

Henry John Woodcock Henry John Woodcock (born 23 March 1967 in Taunton, England) is an Italian prosecutor currently based in Naples Background and early life Woodcock's father was British and worked as a teacher at Livorno's Naval Academy in northern Italy and h ...

, a public prosecutor in

Basilicata it, Lucano (man) it, Lucana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = ...

Poseidone

The

European Anti-Fraud Office The European Anti-Fraud Office (commonly known as OLAF, from the french: Office européen de lutte antifraude) is a body mandated by the European Union (EU) with protecting the Union's financial interests. It was founded on 28 April 1999, unde ...

(OLAF) started the enquiry and handed it over to Luigi de Magistris in May 2005. Investigations started in May 2005 into an allegedly illegal use of 200 million € of

European Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lis ...

funds. Luigi de Magistris has been removed from the investigation with the accusation that de Magistris did not keep the details of the case confidential and revealed the names of people under investigation, including

Forza Italia Forza ItaliaThe name is not usually translated into English: ''forza'' is the second-person singular imperative of ''forzare'', in this case translating to "to compel" or "to press", and so means something like "Forward, Italy", "Come on, Ital ...

senator Giancarlo Pittelli and general Walter Lombardo Cretella.The lodge of deals
, L’Espresso, 5 April 2007

Naples – "City of Peace"

In April 2018, de Magistris wrote to the head of the Naples port authority, Rear Admiral Arturo Faraone, expressing his displeasure with the presence of

USS John Warner (SSN-785) USS ''John Warner'' (SSN-785) is a nuclear powered attack submarine of the United States Navy. She is the first in the class to be named after a person; the first 11 ''Virginia''-class subs were named after states. ''John Warner'' was original ...

near his city. It had fired six

Tomahawk missile The Tomahawk () Land Attack Missile (TLAM) is a long-range, all-weather, jet-powered, subsonic cruise missile that is primarily used by the United States Navy and Royal Navy in ship and submarine-based land-attack operations. Under contract fr ...

s during the

2018 bombing of Damascus and Homs On 14 April 2018, beginning at 04:00 Syrian time (UTC+3), the United States, France, and the United Kingdom carried out a series of military strikes involving aircraft and ship-based missiles against multiple government sites in Syria during ...

. He made reference to a resolution passed in 2015 which declared the

Port of Naples The Port of Naples, a port located on the Western coast of Italy, is the 11th largest seaport in Italy having an annual traffic capacity of around 25 million tons of cargo and 500,000 TEU's. It is also serves as a tourist hub, servicing an estim ...

a "nuclear-free area." He called Naples a "City of Peace" that respects "the fundamental rights of everyone, convinced of disarmament and international cooperation," according to the Italian newspaper ''

La Repubblica ''la Repubblica'' (; the Republic) is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. It was founded in 1976 in Rome by Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso (now known as GEDI Gruppo Editoriale) and led by Eugenio Scalfari, Carlo Caracciolo and Arno ...

''.Naples mayor tells US Navy submarine to keep out
Victoria Leoni, ''Navy Times'', 19 April 2018

References

External links

"The lodge of deals" in Espresso, 5 April 2007, translated into English on the site of OLAF

Article about Luigi de Magistris in The Economist
*
Interview in Italian of Luigi de Magistris from the Casalinuovo hall in Catanzaro
*
Intervista al magistrato Luigi De Magistris sulla criminalità organizzata

Radio Radicale Radio Radicale is the official radio station of the Italian Radical Party. Founded in 1976 as part of the ''Radio libere'' ("Free Radio”) movement, it has no commercial advertisements and is partly funded by the party, with support from the Ita ...

, 17 July 2007
UDC until proven guilty
Hammer & Tongues weblog
Articles written
on ''

l'Unità ''l'Unità'' (, lit. 'the Unity') was an Italian newspaper, founded as the official newspaper of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in 1924. It was supportive of that party's successor parties, the Democratic Party of the Left, Democrats of th ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:De Magistris, Luigi Mayors of Naples Italian prosecutors 1967 births Living people Metropolitan City of Naples Italy of Values MEPs MEPs for Italy 2009–2014 Jurists from Naples 21st-century Italian politicians