News

Devil's Advocate in the Dock

By Henry Langston

giovannidistefano

Everyone remembers Giovanni Di Stefano right? He's that lawyer who's pleaded innocence on behalf of Saddam Hussein, Gary Glitter, Charles Manson and was friends with one of the Balkans' most notorious war criminals, Arkan. Now Giovanni, aka 'the Devil's Advocate', is in a spot of bother himself; having been arrested by Spanish police at his home in Majorca late Monday night at the request of City of London police on charges of fraud. I spoke to him to see what was up.

When I called, Giovanni was recovering from an operation in hospital, but he still had enough fire to rage against charges he says are politically motivated. He may have a case, too – when I first spoke to Giovanni last year, he was in the process of indicting Tony Blair for war crimes. At the time the presiding Attorney General scoffed at the case, but as recently as last week the case was re-opened. I'm not one of these guys who sincerely believes Elvis Presley and Eva Braun are currently busy building a home together in Atlantis, but it does seem slightly more than coincidental that Giovanni has allegations of fraud and an extradition request laid against him the same week Blair comes under fresh scrutiny from the courts.

In his latest conversation with me, Giovanni has vowed to pursue the case for Blair's indictment further, and will fight against his extradition and the fraud charges with every bone in his idiosyncratically combative body. When asked what he thought of the people who made the allegations against, he told me they were "Wankers". Get well soon G!

HENRY LANGSTON