Carlo Taormina (born 16 December 1940) is an Italian lawyer, politician, jurist, and academic who was the defence lawyer of some of the most controversial trials in modern Italian history, such as that of the Ustica affair, the Nazi Erich Priebke, the Abu Omar case, and the Cogne case. He entered politics in 1996, joining Forza Italia, the political party of Silvio Berlusconi. That same year, he ran for the Chamber of Deputies but was not elected.
Taormina was elected a deputy in 2001 but was not included among the candidates for re-election in 2006, after which he left politics. Taormina was Deputy Group Leader of Forza Italia in the Chamber of Deputies, and was briefly undersecretary of state of the Ministry of the Interior; he had to resign due to defending some mafia defendants. He also extended the law of legitimate suspicion, one of the many Berlusconi's ad personam laws, and headed several parliamentary commissions, such as the inquiry into the death of Ilaria Alpi and Miran Hrovatin. In 2009 and 2010, he was the unsuccessful candidate for The Autonomy and Italy League to the European Parliament and the Regional Council of Lazio, respectively.
After the end of his full-time political career in 2006, Taormina became one of the main commentators for the Italian sports talk programme Il processo di Biscardi. In 2008, he founded his own movement, Italy League, which ended in 2011. That same year, he became an independent politician close to Lega Nord, and since 2014 was close to the Five Star Movement (M5S), which he joined in 2016. After leaving the M5S in 2019, he founded Free Italy with New Force and former M5S militants in 2020. In 2022, he also joined South calls North, and was the party's unsuccessful candidate for that year's general election.
In addition to the individuals that he defended as a lawyer, such as a Nazi and former SS captain, mafia defendants, and neo-fascist leaders, Taormina attracted criticism and controversy during his long career, including for his comments about gay people. In 2014, he was convicted of discrimination on the job of homosexual individuals; the sentence was upheld in 2015 and 2020.
Early life and career Born in Rome on 16 December 1940, Taormina graduated in Law from La Sapienza public research university, becoming at first a lawyer and at a later time a magistrate. During his academic career, Taormina dedicated himself to teaching. In 1975, he became a professor of Procedural Law at the University of Macerata; as of 2012, he still taught Procedural Law at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. His teaching method was influenced mainly by Alfredo De Marsico, Giuseppe Sabatini, and Giovanni Conso. Taormina also wrote a series of pamphlets and research papers, which mainly focus on the relationship between the accusers and the accused. Some of his most famous scripts were a manual on procedural law and several monographs. Moreover, he wrote and held the role of co-director for the journal Il Foro Italiano, which was founded in 1972. Also in 1975, Taormina became the editorial director for the specialistic magazine La Giustizia Penale.
Lawyer career During his lawyer career, Taormina worked on many famous cases, including among others the Itavia Flight 870 accident, where he defended the officials accused of hiding valuable information that could have defined the causes of the incident; the Ardeatine massacre, where he defended ex-SS captain Erich Priebke, alongside Velio Di Rezze and Paolo Giachini, on the grounds that Priebke "obeyed an order he considered legitimate and for this reason after many years he did not regret it, but considered the fact as a horror"; the murder of Marta Russo, where he lodged a complaint against the magistrates and investigators, without having any connection with the defence of the accused Giovanni Scattone, Salvatore Ferraro, and Francesco Liparota; the Cogne case, where he substituted professor Carlo Federico Grosso in the defence of Annamaria Franzoni, and was subsequently substituted by lawyer Paola Savio; the killing of SISMI agent Nicola Calipari in Baghdad, where he presided as the defender of Gianluca Preite; and the murder of Yara Gambirasio, where he took part to the criminal trial as a private citizen, arguing for a re-examination of the DNA found on the crime scene to grant Massimo Giuseppe Bossetti, at the time facing life in prison, a revision of his trial and conviction. In 2004, he said: "After Anna Maria Franzoni, I will deal with Saddam Hussein. His sister called me from Jordan." In 2021, he said that he still believed Fronzoni was innocent.
Taormina was the private lawyer for some of the accused for Tangentopoli, such as Bettino Craxi, Giulio Andreotti, and Vincenzo Muccioli, and accused the Mani pulite judges of being justicialists rather than garantists. He also defended the Sacra Corona Unita boss Francesco Prudentino, and was the lawyer of Franco Freda, a neo-fascist, in the court case for the disbandment of the far-right political party National Front. He was the plaintiff lawyer for the parents of the children from Rignano Flaminio, who were suspected of pedophilia and were acquitted. Moreover, he defended Mario Placanica, a Carabiniere accused of the murder of Carlo Giuliani during the Group of Eight meetings in Genoa in 2001; he was one of the lawyers of Nicola Di Girolamo during his trial for criminal conspiracy aimed at money laundering on an international level and the infraction of the electoral law with the mafia association aggravation in 2010, which ended with a plea bargain; and he defended Franco Fiorito, who was implicated in a peculation scandal involving the Regional Council of Lazio headed by Renata Polverini in September 2012, and was initially arrested as a result, before Taormina successfully appealed for his release in December 2012.
Following his involvement in the Cogne case, Taormina filed a complaint against Luciano Garofano, then commander of the Carabinieri's Reparto Investigazioni Scientifiche (RIS) in Parma who was involved in several high-profile criminal investigations, including the Cogne case and the Garlasco case. The investigation, which concerned approximately forty consultancies carried out between 2002 and 2009, examined allegations of embezzlement, fraud, and making false statements in public documents. According to the allegations, Garofano had used Carabinieri personnel and facilities during working hours while receiving professional fees for consultancy work. Garofano denied any wrongdoing, stating that the consultancies had been authorised and that payments had been made in accordance with the applicable rules. The investigation was subsequently closed without resulting in charges against Garofano.
Taormina was the lawyer of Roberto Fiore and Giuliano Castellino, leaders of New Force. Ex-Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari member Luigi Aronica, Biagio Passaro (leader of the IoApro movement), and Pamela Testa were arrested for the assault on the CGIL headquarters during the No Green Pass demonstration on 9 October 2021. He said: "I am a lawyer, I have defended mafiosi, corrupt white collar workers. Mine is a profession." In 2023, Fiore, Castellino, and Testa were all sentenced to more than 8 years in prison. Also in 2023, he defended the lawyer Alessandra Demichelis, who had been suspended for 15 months by the district disciplinary council of the Order of the Lawyers due to the pics she published on Instagram. Taormina said that "the private sphere is sacred" and commented that "Cicciolina was a member of Parliament, and outside she was a pornstar; Berlusconi was Prime Minister and went bunga bunga in the evening."
Taormina defended Cateno De Luca in a 2023 defamation trial, arguing after the first-instance trial, which sentenced him to 8 months, that it presented "an extraordinary anomaly"; however, the sentence on appeal was changed to a suspended fine and damage claims were excluded in June 2025, and Italy's Supreme Court of Cassation annulled the conviction in March 2026 and remanded the case to a new appeal trial in Reggio Calabria. In July 2026, both Taormina and De Luca issued a statement arguing that the sentence had ruled that "he exercised the right to criticize an objective judicial persecution and by publicizing facts, even personal ones, of Mr. Barbaro, but real and proven." De Luca, who personally thanked Taormina, commented that he did not want to appeal his conviction but was convinced to do so by Taormina. Previously, Taormina had defended De Luca in a tax evasion case (originally also involving criminal conspiracy charges before this part of the prosecution case was dismissed by the preliminary hearing judge in July 2018), claiming in November 2017 that there was a conspiracy against his client. De Luca was ultimately acquitted in January 2022 and Taormina described De Luca as the victim of a "judicial ordeal that led him to prison several times and which always resulted in the exclusion of any responsibility". In July 2025, De Luca was awarded €1,532,83 for 13 days of unjust detention, and Taormina said that the award of damage claims to De Luca was a "veritable indictment" of the prosecution.
Into the 2020s, Taormina continued to be invited on TV shows to explain law and the Italian legal system, such as the plea bargain, and as a pundit on judicial cases where he is not involved as lawyer, such as the Garlasco case, the Roggero case, and the Fakir case. As a prominent legal commentator, Taormina frequently analyzed high-profile Italian judicial matters as a guest on TV shows, such as Ignoto X on La7, Incidente Probatorio on Cusano Media, and Canale 122 – Fatti di Nera. In October 2025, Taormina was rumoured and discussed as Andrea Sempio's possible new lawyer in the re-opening of the Garlasco case as his previous lawyer Massimo Lovati was dismissed due to his controversial behaviour. Taormina refused the offer on the grounds that he thought Sempio was guilty. In July 2026, Taormina criticized a Meloni government bill introducing a rebuttable presumption of criminal liability for minors aged 14 to 18. The legislative proposal, which inverted the burden of proof by assuming a minor's capacity to understand right from wrong until proven otherwise, was described by Taormina as "worse than the Fascist Code". He argued that the state should educate and support vulnerable youth rather than repress them.
Political career Forza Italia and second Berlusconi government Taormina began his political career in 1996, becoming a candidate for Forza Italia for the Chamber of Deputies in the college of Monte Sacro in Rome representing the Pole for Freedoms; he obtained 49.9% of the vote and was defeated for a few votes by fellow lawyer Ennio Parrelli representing The Olive Tree. During the legislature XIV of Italy (2001–2006), Taormina was a deputy representing Forza Italia, being given the role of Deputy Group Leader of the party in the Chamber of Deputies. He was elected in the district No. 29 (Melzo) of the III constituency (Lombardy 1) through a decoy list in the 2001 Italian general election. His political role was not renewed for the legislature XV of Italy (2006–2008). In regards to his political activities during these years and being Silvio Berlusconi's secretary and private lawyer, Taormina declared: "I would never do many things I did back then. I am not embarrassed to say that I experienced a moral crisis, which culminated when I saw how the Knight's [referring to Berlusconi] narrower entourage was being structured."