Profile: Rocco Martino
* Italian Intelligence (SISMI) agent
Rocco Martino actively participated in the following events:
(After February 1999) Complete Iraq timeline
Rocco Martino, an Italian security consultant, provides French officials with documents suggesting that Iraq intends to expand its “trade” with Niger. Martino was formerly a member of Italy's foreign intelligence service (SISMI). The French assume the trade being discussed would be in uranium, Niger's main export. At French intelligence's request, Martino continues supplying them with documents. [Sunday Times, 8/1/04; Financial Times, 8/2/04]
People and organizations involved: Rocco Martino
Early 2000 Complete Iraq timeline
Rocco Martino, an Italian security consultant and information peddler, is approached by a former colleague at SISMI, Italy's foreign intelligence agency, who tips him off to a former SISMI source working at the Nigerien Embassy in Rome who can provide Martino with information in exchange for a monthly retainer fee. Martino pursues the lead, and agrees to pay her 500 euros/month. The source, however, remains on SISMI's payroll providing the agency with a way to distribute information to the public while concealing its role. Most of the documents he will receive from the lady will be related to immigration into Italy and Islamist activities in North and Central Africa. [Talking Points Memo, 8/1/04]
People and organizations involved: SISMI, Rocco Martino
Late 2001 Complete Iraq timeline
A member of SISMI, Italy's foreign intelligence service, provides an agency asset working at the Nigerien embassy in Rome with a set of documents which the asset then slips into a collection of documents she later gives to Rocco Martino, an Italian security consultant and information peddler. [Talking Points Memo, 8/1/04; Sunday Times, 8/1/04; Financial Times, 8/2/04] The documents consist of a series of letters purported to have been exchanged between the Niger government and an Iraqi diplomat. According to these letters, Iraq had attempted to obtain 500 tons of uranium oxide, or “yellowcake,” from Niger. [Corriere della Sera, date unknown, cited in Talking Points Memo, 10/31/03; New Yorker, 10/20/03; Agence France Presse, 7/19/03; Reuters, 7/19/03]
People and organizations involved: Rocco Martino, SISMI
Between late 2001 and September 2002 Complete Iraq timeline
Rocco Martino, an Italian security consultant and information peddler, receives a telephone call from a former colleague at SISMI, Italy's foreign intelligence service, who informs him that his source at the Nigerien embassy is in possession of documents (see Late 2001) that might be of interest to him. “I met her and she gave me documents,” Martino later tells the Sunday Times. “SISMI wanted me to pass on the documents but they didn't want anyone to know they had been involved.” [Sunday Times, 8/1/04; Financial Times, 8/2/04]
People and organizations involved: Rocco Martino, SISMI
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