Bari, Emiliano: “From an educated magistrate, dozens of trials against bosses”
“My profession as an anti-mafia magistrate led me to have knowledge of many details of the family and personal dynamics of the local clans. Knowledge which was the common heritage of the entire district anti-mafia directorate”. Thus began the president of the Puglia Region, Michele Emilianoin a hearing before the Anti-Mafia commission – after the controversy of recent weeks relating to the postponement of the hearing itself – regarding the investigation into alleged mafia infiltration in the Municipality of Bari: “As a deputy prosecutor – the governor recalled – I instructed dozens of trials of mafiosi and drug traffickers and hundreds of defendants sent to trial, many of whom were convicted”.
These were not easy moments for the Apulian governor. Even though media attention has been monopolized by the Toti case, sJust a few weeks ago the Region that the former magistrate has governed for nine years was shaken by two judicial investigations that hit Anita Maurodinoiaregional councilor for transport, e Alfonsino Pisicchio (his brother Enzo), president of the Apulian regional agency for technology and innovation, was also investigated. The latter, Emiliano’s trusted man, confessed to having received a message, by the governor of Puglia, prior to the arrest, which alerted him to the ongoing investigations into his account.
WATCH THE HEARING OF THE EMILIAN GOVERNOR IN THE ANTI-MAFIA COMMISSION HERE
“From the boss’s sister to impose the rules”
Emiliano then goes on to explain the speech he made on stage in Bari together with mayor Decaro a few weeks ago, on the occasion of the protest against the government’s decision to send inspectors to the Municipality: “The meeting mentioned on stage was one of the many I held in that period (following the closure of Bari Vecchia to traffic, ndr) to make it clear that the climate had changed, never to ask for protection as someone said in a completely instrumental way or through incorrect interpretation of facts they don’t know. I went to Antonio Capriati’s sister to reiterate that they no longer made the rules and also to say that if they hadn’t released the properties confiscated from the family we would have done it anyway”.
“No investigation into the Region and the Council”
The governor appeals to the Anti-Mafia: “The Region and the Council of Bari are not the subject of any investigation. Help me reconstruct the truth and tell the facts as they happened”.
Clash in commission between Emiliano and Colosimo
During the audition also a polemical exchangeas reported byAnsa, between the governor himself and the president of the commission, Chiara Colosimo. The verbal clash was triggered when the president asked Emiliano to account for the alleged messages that the governor sent to former councilor Alfonso Pisicchio inviting him to resign because an investigation into him had accelerated. A few hours after the alleged WhatsApp messages, Pisicchio was arrested by the financial police. Colosimo asked if these messages were actually sent and from whom he would have received information about the investigation and why he did not report the leak.
Emiliano responded by first reading a press release sent shortly after Pisicchio’s arrest, then replied by claiming that the “question is incongruous with the subject of the hearing”. “I have not carried out any non-transparent conduct – he specified – I am available to the Prosecutor’s Office should further investigation be necessary”. And he concluded: “I understand from reading the press that the messages would have been acquired by the Prosecutor’s Office, therefore the only person who can give answers is the Prosecutor of the Republic who you listened to”.
Emiliano: “Maybe Decaro absent from meeting with sister boss”
“These are events from many years ago, I might even have given the wrong details” when speaking on stage last March 23: “if the mayor of Bari, Antonio Decaro says he wasn’t with me at the meeting with the sister of the Bari Vecchia boss, he’s probably right”, explained the president of the Puglia Region, changing his version of what happened. However, the Democratic representative recalled to the commission “a similar episode, which happened in Piazza della Cattedrale. Decaro told me ‘they were there’ (with reference to the threats suffered by the then councillor, ndr). I confronted these guys and said ‘this engineer is my councilor, don’t touch him, let him work’. The same speech I made to everyone to make it clear that the climate had changed”. As for the threats themselves, “in Decaro’s story I didn’t see any news of a crime, which is why I didn’t feel I had to report it”.