The first woman to head the Italian secret services, Elisabetta Belloniwill leave the direction of the Department of Security Information (DIS) on January 15, in the midst of negotiations with Iran to achieve the release of the Italian journalist Cecilia Salaimprisoned in that country for several weeks.
The resignation of Belloni, 66, is due to a “personal decision”which could be linked to the “deterioration” of his relations with the Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajaniand the undersecretary Alfredo Mantovanodelegated authority for Security, local media highlighted this Tuesday.
The resignation of the former diplomat, with an extensive career in international assignments and also in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has been completely unexpected, given that her mandate did not expire until May 2025 and has caused astonishment in the Government, in the intelligence apparatus and at the top of the institutions, according to Efe citing the same sources.
Belloni announced his resignation in a letter sent on December 23 to the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni.and Mantovano, although it was not revealed until this Monday by the newspaper The Republicwhich assured that the former ambassador could now apply for a high-level position in the European Union as a representative of the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen.
His resignation, in any case, occurs in the midst of the feverish negotiations of the Meloni Government to achieve the release of Sala, imprisoned since last December 19 in the Evin prison, accused by the Iranian regime of “violating the laws of the Islamic Republic”.
The secret services work intensely to achieve the freedom of the journalistwhose arrest appears linked to the arrest in Italy of the Iranian engineer Mohammad Abedini, for whom the US is requesting his extradition accused of providing drone components to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
The ‘Sala case’ was the main argument of the meeting between Meloni and the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, during the Italian president’s lightning visit to her Mar-a-Lago residence, in Florida, on the night of Saturday to Sunday, and in which the absence of the head of the DIS drew attention, given her experience in negotiating kidnappings.
Belloni, que también fue la primera mujer en ocupar el puesto de secretaria general del Ministerio de Exteriores desde mayo de 2016, había sido jefa de la Unidad de Crisis en 2004 durante la tragedia del ‘tsunami’ en el sudeste asiático con miles de turistas italianos en la zona y luego los casos de secuestrados en Irak y Afganistán, entre otras responsabilidades.
Se convirtió en la primera mujer al frente del DIS en mayo de 2021, con el Gobierno de Mario Draghi y continúo en su cargo tras la llegada de Meloni al poder, en octubre de 2022, un periodo en el que se encargó de las negociaciones durante la presidencia italiana del G7 el año pasado.
También se barajó su nombre para el puesto de ministra de Asuntos Europeos, tras el nombramiento de Raffaele Fitto como comisario europeo.
El Departamento de Información para la Seguridad (DIS) es el órgano utilizado por el presidente del Gobierno para segurar la unidad en la planificación de la investigación de la información, en el análisis y en las actividades operativas de la Agencia de Información y Seguridad Externa (AISE) y la Agencia de Información y Seguridad Interna (AISI).
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