Giovanni di Stefano

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Giovanni Di Stefano (2009)

Giovanni di Stefano (born July 1, 1955 in Petrella Tifernina , Province of Campobasso , Italy ) is an Italian impostor who, among other things, worked as the defense attorney for serial killer "Doctor Death" Harold Shipman , train robber Ronald Biggs , Jonathan King , Saddam Hussein , Slobodan Milošević and Željko Ražnatović alias "Arkan" became known. He also had contact with Osama bin Laden through Arkan . In the trial he also testified that he had had contact with the then President of Zimbabwe , Robert Mugabe . All of this led to him being called "the devil's advocate". In 2013 he was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Life

Di Stefano's father came to Irchester with the family as a guest worker in the early 1960s . As early as 1976, Giovanni Di Stefano was briefly sentenced to prison in Ireland for fraud . Di Stefano lived in Great Britain until 1989, where he was convicted of fraud again and imprisoned in 1984. At the time he claimed he had a doctorate in law from Cambridge University , but in fact he never went to college.

From 1989 to 1992 he lived in Los Angeles and tried - without success - to acquire the MGM studios . After the judiciary had put him out to be wanted again for fraud, Di Stefano fled to Yugoslavia in 1992 , where he was able to establish a friendly relationship with Slobodan Milošević. He stayed in Serbia until 1999 and then moved to Italy .

At the beginning of the 2000s he managed to defend numerous well-known accused as an alleged lawyer under the Italian name “avvocato” . These included war criminals such as Tariq Aziz and Saddam Hussein, as well as suspects whose cases were controversial in the (primarily British) press (e.g. Gary Glitter ). Di Stefano himself published a book in 2005 called Defending the Indefensible .

In 2011, Di Stefano was arrested in Mallorca for money laundering and fraud under a European arrest warrant issued by the UK law enforcement authorities .

In March 2013, Di Stefano was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for several cases of fraud, stolen goods and other fraudulent acts.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Arkan died as he lived - like a dog" , Die Welt , January 17, 2000
  2. ^ Bogus Italian lawyer Giovanni di Stefano is jailed for 14 years , BBC , March 28, 2013
  3. ↑ Saddam Hussein's lawyer just an impostor FAZ March 27, 2013
  4. ↑ Ostthüringer Zeitung: False lawyer for Saddam Hussein has to be imprisoned for 14 years ( memento from April 12, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  5. ↑ "Bin Laden had a wonderful way of talking" by Eva Marie Kogel Die Welt March 28, 2013 The "devil's lawyer" is an impostor
  6. ↑ 'The Devil's Advocate' Giovanni di Stefano was 'not a lawyer at all', court hears , by James Edgar, The Independent , January 30, 2013
  7. ↑ devilsadvokat twitter account
  8. ↑ Jim Cusack: Millionaire 'lawyer' certified insane here while in jail for fraud . English. Irish Independent, June 18, 2006. Online at www.independent.ie. Retrieved April 24, 2013.
  9. ↑ Eva Marie Kogel: Bin Laden had a wonderful way of talking . DIE WELT from March 28, 2013. Online at www.welt.de.
personal data
SURNAME Di Stefano, Giovanni
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian impostor
DATE OF BIRTH July 1, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Petrella Tifernina , Campobasso Province