Oscar Luigi Scalfaro (Italian pronunciation: [ˈɔskar luˈiːdʒi ˈskalfaro]; 9 September 1918 – 29 January 2012)[1] was President of Italy from 1992 to 1999.

In 1945, after the end of World War II, he became a public prosecuting attorney, and to date, he is the last Italian attorney to have obtained a death sentence: in July of that year, along with two others, he was a public prosecutor in the trial against former Novara prefect Enrico Vezzalini and servicemen Arturo Missiato, Domenico Ricci, Salvatore Santoro, Giovanni Zeno and Raffaele Infante, accused of "collaborating with the German invaders".

On 7 April 1994, Scalfaro co-officiated at the Papal Concert to Commemorate the Shoah at the Sala Nervi in Vatican City, along with Pope John Paul II, and Chief Rabbi of Rome Elio Toaff.

In recent times, Scalfaro was the chairman of the committee that advocated the abrogation, in the referendum of 25 and 26 June 2006, on the constitutional reform that had been passed in parliament the previous year by the former centre-right majority.

A staunch Catholic, and in the past, a rather conservative and anti-communist politician, Scalfaro nevertheless distrusted many members of the DC who changed support to Forza Italia, and was consistently on bad terms with Silvio Berlusconi.

He openly supported the centre-left coalition,[citation needed] which included Democratic Party of the Left, which won the 1996 and 2006 elections.

After the 2008 parliamentary election, he was again asked to preside as pro tempore Speaker of the Senate after Rita Levi-Montalcini again refused the post, but this time he also declined to serve.