December 17, 2019
The evidence has
raised alarms about the extent to which fake news, having infiltrated the
West’s media and elections, is penetrating its courts.
ROME — Few
disputed the guilt of Vitaly Markiv, a Ukrainian who also holds Italian
citizenship, when an Italian court sentenced him to 24 years in prison this
summer.
Most of the
evidence showing that he had helped coordinate an artillery strike in a
conflict zone of his native country, killing an Italian war photographer, had
been retrieved from his electronic devices.
But it raised
eyebrows when the court released its reasoning in the fall showing that among
the evidence presented by Italian prosecutors were reports from publications
that are generally considered outlets for Russian propaganda.
Experts say the
inclusion of two videos from Russia Today, plus a report on the website
Russkaya Vesna that the Ukrainian government said was false, raised questions
about the extent to which fake news, after infiltrating the West’s news media
and elections, is now penetrating its courts.
“Contamination is
by its nature expansive,” said Luciano Floridi, a professor of philosophy and
the ethics of information at Oxford who has studied the effects of
disinformation. And it can easily spread from media and politics to the
judiciary, he added.
Prosecutors said
they did not consider the Russia Today reports decisive in the verdict, and
members of the jury are not permitted to discuss what convinced them of Mr.
Markiv’s guilt.
But the inclusion
in court of the propaganda and disinformation, regardless of its
persuasiveness, has raised alarm with experts and some politicians.
In November, the Ukrainian government, which was made a
co-defendant in the case and thus liable for economic damages, appealed the
decision. It has engaged in its own propaganda war with Russia and has
routinely blamed Russian disinformation for anything that puts its military in
a bad light.
This month, the
liberal party, More Europe, argued that the trial was tainted by “hearsay and
prejudices” and asked the European Union to send observers to the appeal trial,
which is expected to begin this spring.
Mr. Markiv, now
30, left Italy to take part in the Euromaidan protests
in Kyiv in 2014. When the war erupted in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass
region a few months later, he joined Ukraine’s National Guard to fight against
Russian separatist forces.
While a
guardsman, prosecutors charged, he helped coordinate an attack by a Ukrainian
Army unit against a group of civilians. Among the group was the Italian
photographer Andrea Rocchelli, 30, who was killed by the artillery fire along with other
journalists on May 24, 2014.
For two years, an
inquiry by investigators in Pavia, Mr. Rocchelli’s hometown, led nowhere,
because of a lack of cooperation from the Ukrainian authorities, said the
prosecutor in the case, Andrea Zanoncelli.
But in the summer
of 2016, Mr. Zanoncelli said, a Google search led him to an
article published by Italy’s leading daily newspaper, Corriere della Sera.
It was a
purported interview with an unidentified captain from the Ukrainian army
stationed in the area.
“Don’t come here,
it’s a strategic area,” the captain was quoted as saying. “Usually we don’t
shoot toward the city or at civilians, but as soon as we see anything move, we
fire heavy artillery. That’s what happened with the two journalists and their
interpreter.”
The prosecutor
saw it as an admission of guilt, despite Italian journalism’s usual lack of
rigor.
When the police
questioned the article’s author, the journalist told them that the purported
interview was a compilation of remarks she had heard in a conversation between
the soldier and a photographer.
The Italian
police subsequently determined that the anonymous army captain was Mr. Markiv.
The Italian authorities
began tapping Mr. Markiv’s conversations with his mother in Italy to gain
evidence. They arrested him and charged him with murder as he returned to a
Bologna airport in June 2017.
The case drew
high-profile lawyers and became a rallying cry for press freedom. A senator
from Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party defended Mr. Markiv. The former
left-wing mayor of Milan represented two prominent media guilds, which
presented themselves as injured parties, on behalf of the photojournalist.
Among the
evidence presented were videos described as “open source,” “found on YouTube”
or “from a local TV station,” all of which bore the logo of Russia Today and
are still found on its YouTube channel.
The ruling also
cites an article in Russkaya Vesna, alleging that Ukraine’s Interior Ministry
conspired with Mr. Markiv’s fellow guardsmen to protect him.
It included a
document, purportedly leaked from the Ukrainian authorities, instructing Mr.
Markiv’s comrades to testify in his favor.
The Ukrainian
government said the document was a forgery.
“Our interior
minister intervened personally to make it clear that the thing was fake,” said
Yaroslav Moshkola, an official from the Ukrainian Embassy in Rome. “It’s very
strange that the court accepted this document.”
The conviction of
Mr. Markiv caused outrage in Ukraine. Media outlets and nationalist politicians
have sought to exonerate him by discrediting the Italian legal system with
claims that the trial in Pavia was tainted by “anti-Ukrainian” bias and Russian
propaganda.
The prosecutor,
Mr. Zanoncelli, said that the article was not pivotal in discrediting the
witnesses called by the defense. “They were disproved because they contradicted
one another,” he said.
As for the
document it cited, he said that “it was never clear how genuine it was” and
that he had presented it “to show this thing existed, so that the court could
evaluate it.”
The jurors wrote
in the final ruling that Mr. Markiv’s fellow guardsmen “were instructed to give
pre-agreed answers” and that the Russkaya Vesna article “contains some elements
that seemed to be pointing toward the truth.”
Without
addressing Mr. Markiv’s guilt or innocence, Serena Quattrocolo, a law professor
at Eastern Piedmont University whose expertise is in the digital distortion of
evidence in court, said that more broadly, the inclusion of material found
online from disputable sources in Italian courts was “part of an unsettling
scenario and of larger problem.”
Russia has spread
disinformation online as a part of a broader strategy to destabilize the
West. The United States Department of Justice has accused a Russian
organization linked to the Kremlin of meddling in the 2016 elections.
Russian-backed
groups carried out a disinformation campaign in Europe ahead of the European
Union elections in May, according to a report
issued by the European Commission. And Kremlin-backed
influence networks targeting African
countries were recently discovered and taken down by Facebook. Analysts believe
the networks could serve as a test for next year’s elections in the United
States.
Italy is
particularly vulnerable. According to Italy’s Authority
of Communication, disinformation is growing in the country, although
it has not been directly linked to Russia. The lines between mainstream outlets
and propaganda are often blurred.
The current chair of
Italy’s state television broadcaster RAI has spread conspiracy
theories online and has been frequently interviewed by Russia Today and
Sputnik.
In September, the
private broadcaster Mediaset aired a “deep fake video,” which used seamless
visual effects to doctor speech by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
The appearance of
Russian propaganda in court crosses a new threshold, a challenge for which
Italy may not be fully prepared.
Mr. Markiv is
appealing the verdict, which also demanded that Ukraine pay reparations to Mr.
Rocchelli’s parents, widow and young son and to the two journalists’ guilds.
Paolo Perucchini, who heads one of those guilds, the Lombardy journalists association, praised the verdict as a demonstration that “information is valued in our country.”
Asked about the
inclusion of anonymously sourced reporting and Russia Today into evidence, he
seemed unbothered.
“It’s not up to
me to decide if Russia Today spreads fake news,” he said. “Even a broken clock
is right twice a day.”
Anna Momigliano
