From the Courtrooms
Aemilia Trial
After six months of drafting, Judge Francesca Zavaglia of the Bologna Preliminary Hearing Court filed 1,400 pages of reasoning for the sentence that in April 2016 concluded the abbreviated procedures of the Aemilia trial with 58 convictions, 17 plea bargains, 12 acquittals, and one dismissal due to statute of limitations.
Reasoning for the First-Degree Sentence (Abbreviated Procedures)
Most of the first-degree convictions were upheld by the Bologna Court of Appeal, which on September 12, 2017, published the second-degree sentence for the Aemilia trial.
Reasoning for the Court of Appeal’s Sentence (Abbreviated Procedures) – Part I
Reasoning for the Court of Appeal’s Sentence (Abbreviated Procedures) – Part II
Reasoning for the Court of Appeal’s Sentence (Abbreviated Procedures) – Part III
In April 2019, the Supreme Court issued its final ruling on the abbreviated procedures of Aemilia (here is our commentary on the sentence).
Reasoning for the Supreme Court’s Sentence (Abbreviated Procedures)
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In October 2018, the Reggio Emilia Court issued the sentence concluding the first-degree ordinary proceedings.
Dispositif of the Reggio Emilia Court’s Sentence (Ordinary Procedures)
Black Monkey Trial
Some defendants in the Black Monkey trial chose the abbreviated procedure. Preliminary Investigations Judge Andrea Scarpa recognized the simple criminal association and the aggravating circumstance of the mafia method. We publish the reasoning here, divided into two parts for convenience (the dispositif with convictions and acquittals is at the end of the second file).
Reasoning for the First-Degree Sentence (Abbreviated Procedures) – Part I
Reasoning for the First-Degree Sentence (Abbreviated Procedures) – Part II
The Attorney General and some defendants (including Nicola Paparusso) appealed to the Supreme Court: here are the outcomes of the appeal.
On February 22, 2017, the Bologna Court read the sentence recognizing the existence of the mafia association led by Nicola Rocco Femia. Notable were the damages awarded to the civil parties and the heavy confiscations imposed on the defendants. Below, you will find the file with the dispositif (containing the convictions, principal and accessory penalties, and damages) and the file with the complete reasoning, filed on July 19, 2017.
Dispositif of the First-Degree Sentence (Ordinary Procedures)
Reasoning for the First-Degree Sentence (Ordinary Procedures)
On October 29, 2019, the Bologna Court of Appeal partially overturned the first-degree sentence, dropping the hypothesis of mafia-style criminal association and requalifying the charge as simple criminal association (Article 416 of the Penal Code). Many of the crimes for which the Bologna Court had imposed convictions in the first instance were declared time-barred.
Reasoning for the Appeal Sentence (Bologna Court of Appeal)
Chiaradia and Torello Second-Degree Sentence (Bologna Court of Appeal)
Acquittal Sentence of CPL Concordia
“The evidence gathered is insufficient to assert that there was pressure from the Camorra to induce the Eurogas consortium to renounce its concessions and thereby favor CPL Concordia in the construction of the gas network in several municipalities in the Caserta area. A clear involvement of the Casalesi clan emerged only at a later stage, when the Campania Basin 30 had already been established and the operational phase was to begin.”
This is, in summary, what the judges of the North Naples Court (Presiding Judge Francesco Chiaromonte, Judges Luca Rossetti and Marina Napolitano) stated in the reasoning for the sentence issued on October 13, which acquitted the managers of the Modena cooperative Roberto Casari, defended by lawyers Luigi Chiappero and Luigi Sena; Giulio Lancia, assisted by lawyer Bruno Larosa; and Giuseppe Cinquanta, defended by lawyers Arturo and Errico Frojo, with the formula “because the fact does not exist.”
[Source: Repubblica.it, Naples edition]
Reasoning for the Sentence (First Degree)
Dissolution of the Municipality of Brescello
The Council of State confirmed, with Sentence No. 5782 published on December 7, 2017, the dissolution of the municipality of Brescello in the province of Reggio Emilia, the first Emilia-Romagna municipality dissolved due to mafia infiltration.
Council of State, No. 5782/2017
From Veneto: Operation Isola Scaligera
On June 4, 2020, a precautionary custody order was executed against 26 suspects charged, in various capacities, with mafia association, drug trafficking, money laundering, extortion, fraudulent transfer of assets, false invoicing for non-existent transactions, fraud, corruption, and interference with public tenders. Twenty-three were arrested, six under house arrest, while three others were required to report to the judicial police. The investigations, conducted between 2017 and 2018 by the Central Operational Service of the State Police and the Mobile Squads of Verona and Venice, uncovered the existence of a local ‘Ndrangheta cell operating in Verona and its province, linked to the powerful “Arena-Nicoscia” clan of Isola Capo Rizzuto (KR).