2008-05-06 16:43:03 -

PARMA, Italy (AP) - Parmalat founder Calisto Tanzi was confronted by angry shouts Tuesday as he made his first appearance in a Parma court to face charges of fraudulent bankruptcy _ the most serious to date _ in the stunning the ¤14 billion failure (US$18 billion) of the dairy empire.
As Tanzi entered the court with

three defense lawyers, a woman whose daughter lost ¤10,000 in Europe's largest bankruptcy shouted after him, «Shame, shame, shame.
The 69-year-old, looking weary, refused comment to reporters before and after the proceedings.
It was his first appearance in Parma, although he has shown up in a Milan court where he is accused of market rigging, providing false accounting information and misleading Italy's stock market regulator. He has always professed his innocence.
On Tuesday, Tanzi's lawyers lost a motion to combine all the Parma-based trials against a total of 56 defendants.
Tanzi defense lawyer Giampiero Biancolella argued that combining the Parma trials was the only way to efficiently defend his client, as many strands in the cases overlap.
However, Judge Eleonora Fiengo refused, saying that keeping the trials separate would speed up the smaller cases without hampering the defense.
The court decided to unite just two of the six pending trials. The main trial _ in which Parmalat founder Tanzi, former CFO Fausto Tonna and 22 other former executives face charges including fraudulent bankruptcy and criminal association _ will now also include Tanzi's former lawyer. Michele Ributti is charged with misappropriating Parmalat funds.
That trial will continue June 4. Defendants could face up to 15 years in prison, the highest penalties in any of the ongoing trials in either Milan or Parma.
But three other trials will remain separate _ those involving the failure of the Parmatour travel company, Parmalat's purchase of the Ciappazzi mineral water company and the swindling of funds from a Bologna-based financial institution, Emilia Romagna Factoring.
The court will decide June 4 whether yet another case, involving Parmalat's 1999 purchase of a smaller dairy producer, Eurolat, will be combined with the main proceedings.
In the Eurolat case, prominent Italian banker Cesare Geronzi is charged with extortion for allegedly forcing Tanzi to buy Eurolat at an inflated price by threatening that Parmalat would otherwise be deprived of financing by Banca di Roma, which Geronzi headed at the time.
Geronzi also is accused in the Ciappazzi case of pressuring Parmalat to make its Parmatour tourism unit buy the mineral-water company from Rome businessman Giuseppe Ciarrapico at an inflated price. The charges in that case are contributing to fraudulent bankruptcy and usury.
Currently Mediobanca chairman, Geronzi has denied wrongdoing in both cases.
Paola Cagossi, a lawyer representing more than 1,000 Parmalat shareholders who lost their investments in the crash, said the court's decision to maintain several trials would give small investors a better chance of winning damages.

Tens of thousands of investors who bought shares and bonds are expected to join the various proceedings to claim damages.
Rita Cipriano, who came from Milan to confront Tanzi on behalf of her daughter, wore a placard around her neck reading «Shame, shame, shame» _ words she yelled at Tanzi as he entered court.
«How is your conscience, Mr. Tanzi?» she called after him.
«I am happy I could confront him. I didn't dare hope that I would see him,» Cipriano said afterward. «I am here for my daughter and lots of other small people who lost their money.
Parmalat's clean image as a simple dairy business _ even though it sold milk, juice and baked goods in 30 countries _ masked a tangled financial web that unraveled when the company acknowledged a crushing debt of ¤14 billion (US$18 billion), eight times higher than previously claimed.
Parmalat emerged from bankruptcy protection after a two-year reorganization and re-listed on the Milan Stock Exchange in 2005.