The former chairman of the world’s oldest bank was accused Monday of ordering “an act of intimidation” against a prime aide — proper before his surprising death in a plunge from a third-floor workplace window in Siena, Italy.
It was the newest twist in the saga of a death that was initially deemed a suicide — but in which the sufferer’s spouse suspected foul play as the bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, was reeling from scandal, as beforehand reported by The Post.
An Italian parliamentary commission said Monday that ex-chair of Monte dei Paschi Giuseppe Mussari despatched goons to tough up the bank’s communications chief David Rossi in 2013, but didn’t intend to have him killed, the Financial Times reported Monday.
Giuseppe Mussari, the former chairman of Monte dei Paschi di Siena, has been accused by an Italian parliamentary commission of ordering an intimidation plot allegedly linked to the 2013 death of a prime govt. Mussari denies the allegations. Bloomberg via Getty Images
A person named Gabriele Ceccherelli was accused of organizing the nasty job and deciding on the attackers, who were not named.
The matter is being referred to prosecutors, since it is not up to the commission to probe Mussari or Ceccherelli, said chairman Gianluca Vinci, a lawmaker from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s ruling celebration.
Mussari strongly denied the allegation to Italian TV, saying he would transfer to shield his rep in court, according to the FT.
On the evening of March 6, 2013, Rossi plunged from a window at the bank’s headquarters and died about 20 minutes later.
A new forensic evaluation concluded that he was bodily assaulted by at least two people before the fall.
CCTV footage confirmed up to two males checking out the physique before strolling away without informing the authorities, the FT reported. And a notice with the phrases “I have done something stupid” was found in Rossi’s workplace at the time.
A witness assertion cited by the commission claimed that those behind the alleged plot has been “afraid Rossi might talk,” according to the Financial Times.
It was not clear what info they feared he might reveal.
David Rossi, proper, the then-spokesman of Banca Monte Paschi di Siena, walks with CEO Alessandro Profumo in an undated picture. Reuters
The death came during a difficult time for Monte dei Paschi. Mussari had pushed the bank’s 2008 $7.5 billion takeover of Banca Antonveneta in a deal many analysts seen as overpriced.
Monte dei Paschi was also concerned in dangerous derivatives that took main losses during the financial disaster that yr.
In October 2014, Mussari and two other Monte dei Paschi executives were convicted by Italian authorities for obstructing regulators and deceptive investigators on the bailed-out Italian bank’s funds in the wake of the acquisition of Banca Antonveneta.
As for Rossi’s death, it was initially handled as a suicide by Italian authorities — a conclusion his household long disputed. Two separate investigations into the incident were closed in 2014 and 2017.
A parliamentary inquiry in 2022 criticized the unique investigation, citing what it described as bias toward the suicide concept and a failure to adequately pursue other doable explanations for Rossi’s death.
Rossi was one of three people in the banking industry whose deaths were labelled suicides from 2013 to 2014, as The Post reported. In each case, the sufferer had ties to a world banking scandal, leaving more questions than solutions about the circumstances surrounding their deaths.
The Palazzo Salimbeni is seen in Siena, Italy, Saturday, Oct. 28, 2017. Corbis via Getty Images
The man had labored carefully with Mussari for more than a decade, first handling communications for the Monte dei Paschi basis before becoming a member of him at the bank when he turned chairman in 2006.
Just 15 days before Rossi’s death, investigators searched Rossi’s home and workplace, as properly as Mussari’s residence. The communications chief had not been formally positioned under investigation.
Mussari was sentenced to seven years and six months in prison in 2019 in a separate case involving false accounting and market manipulation.
David Rossi, the spokesman of Monte Paschi di Siena, is seen in an undated picture. Reuters
The conviction was overturned on appeal in 2022, and Italy’s Supreme Court upheld his acquittal the following yr.
Neither Mussari nor Ceccherelli had been positioned under felony investigation in connection with the new allegations as of Monday, according to Italian media reports.
The Post sought remark from Mussari through his former protection firm, from Vinci and Rossi household attorney Carmelo Miceli through their respective workplaces, and from Monte dei Paschi and prosecutors in Siena.
