What's new about the Mifsud case

At risk our national security and the life of professor Mifsud: isn't it time that some power of attorney decides to investigate?

The same Adnkronos that published them on Wednesday was very uncertain about the authenticity of the two audio files of the alleged Mifsud arrived at the news agency and the newsroom Corriere della Sera by an anonymous and encrypted e-mail system.

US prosecutor John Durham, who is investigating the origins of the Russiagate and the alleged involvement of some allied countries, including Italy, would have acquired the files to examine them, according to reportsAdnkronos the lawyer Stephan Roh, who would have spoken directly with the prosecutor, "interested in understanding what happened to one of the Russiagate protagonists and also who the female voice is that for a brief moment can be heard at the end of the second audio file" .

Meanwhile, the United States bounces back the indiscretion that prosecutor Durham is planning a new visit to Italy, after that of September 27th together with Barr to meet the heads of our services, and the news of an unscheduled meeting arrives , in the White House oval study, between President Trump and the Attorney General.

A meeting to take stock of the report by the Justice Department's inspector general, Michael Horowitz, on the alleged FBI abuses in the Trump Campaign surveillance in 2016, whose publication "I know it's imminent," said Barr, explaining that "Some people mentioned in the report are just now having the opportunity to make a statement about how they are quoted in the report and, once this process is over, which should be very short, the report will be published."

Last week, Senator Lindsey Graham, president of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he was "updated" by Barr on the IG Horowitz report and told Fox News that it would be "shocking", "incriminating". "I think it will show that the system has come off the rails and we need corrective action."

Meanwhile, in Italy, doubts are multiplied about the voice of the man who in the audio arrived at theAdnkronos qualifies as Joseph Mifsud. The only ones to be certain "100 percent" that it is the professor's own are the leaders of the Link Campus, which, however, are a party to the dispute, in fact being exonerated by the declarations contained in the files.

The audio has already failed a first test. Roberto Vivaldelli, of InsideOver, he turned to an "expert in forensic disciplines, one of the most important in Italy in this area", who after comparing the audio file sent by the alleged Mifsud with two videos of the Maltese professor on YouTube, concluded that yes it is a "fake" and that the person speaking is not Joseph Mifsud. The expert was able to provide other interesting details. The man to whom the voice that is heard in the files belongs “presumably twenty years less than the professor (who has almost 60, ed) and he is reading something written ", his voice shows" the typical defects of Italians who speak English "and" does not have the same cadence as the real Mifsud of the videos, which dragged the vowels because of his breathing. This thing in the audio file is never there and I'm pretty convinced it's a fake. " Moreover, he must have recorded it "with a microphone attached to the collar of his shirt, in a very large environment, connected directly to the computer, there is a lot of echo". And he also confirms that a woman's voice is heard towards the end, which she would say "22". Not only that: according to the expert contacted by InsideOver, the file would have been "worked later with some program, it was added compression".

Other things do not seem to return to the audio, as we have already noted. Why ever record in English, when Mifsud speaks excellent Italian, statements addressed to Italian media, whose purpose is quite clearly to respond to very recent surveys and interviews with Italian media outlets?

If, as the voice in the audio states, "absolutely" has no contact with friends and family and has not had any for months, he has not even been able to "read the news", as he was able "recently" to have been "informed" in reliable way "of the accusations made against the Link?

And because, after repeatedly stating that he had never received "pressure" but only "advice", in the end, in a dramatic appeal, he asked that "given the opportunity to return to life", that "someone, from some part, decide "to do it" breathe again "?

But as the newspaper reports The truth – that on the very day when the sound of the alleged Mifsud came up, he found significant confirmations to the version provided by the lawyer Roh – in these hours many are moving to analyze the files, and the investigative site Bellingcat is among them, as well as we have told the US authorities.

If we were in the presence of a fake audio, that is, if someone had played Mifsud, the implications would be different and very serious.

First of all, we would no longer be faced with a denial of our country's involvement in the origins of the Russiagate and in the disappearance of the professor, but in a deliberate attempt to redirect the Durham investigation. A scorn that would struggle (and is already struggling) to withstand the pressures of journalism, let alone the test of an analysis conducted with the powerful means of US agencies. In Washington this hypothesis is evaluated with concern and a negative outcome of the exams on audio files could only be taken very seriously.

Moreover, as we have already observed, if it were not his voice but that of an impostor, we would really have to worry about the fate of the Maltese professor: who would risk, in fact, registering a false audio of a person knowing it alive – and free at any time to reappear, deny, report? But even if it were the real Mifsud to speak in those files, they don't seem to be the words of a free man, but of an exhausted prisoner who could have been pressured to register and spread these statements right now.

In short, given the possible repercussions on our relations with the US, and therefore on our national security, of a screening attempt on the Durham survey, and the well-founded concerns about the health and safety of Professor Mifsud, which in the case of a fake audio might not even be alive, isn't it time that some prosecutors decide to start investigating? If not now, when?

(Extract of an article published in Atlantico Quotidiano, here the complete article)