The con artist 'lawyer' who faked his way to the top – and duped the world
telegraph.co.ukGiovanni di Stefano claimed to have offered counsel to Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milošević, Arkan, Robert Mugabe, Ian Brady and Gary Glitter, to name but a few, and regarded many of them as personal friends.
Saddam Hussein? ‘A normal, average, everyday person.’ Milošević? ‘A very nice man. F—k me, what a nice man.’ Harold Shipman? ‘Does he look like a guilty man to you?’ He even said he would defend Satan in court if he could, arguing that ‘no one’s ever asked, “Does Satan have a case?”’ Ditto Adolf Hitler.In the late ’90s and throughout the noughties, di Stefano was rarely out of the headlines for long, making his name with court victories for notorious landlord Nicholas van Hoogstraten and gangster John ‘Goldfinger’ Palmer before graduating to global pariahs.
He was also a walking headline, not only pulling off breathtakingly audacious victories for big-name villains, but ready with a quote, delivered in fluent journalese.
Describing his first encounter with bin Laden, for example, he said: ‘He had very soft skin and a handshake like a girl’s. We talked about Titian.’His insatiable appetite for notoriety could not, however, be satisfied merely by befriending despots and murderers.
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