CNL Emiliano Mattarella (3)
“That ugly mess in Bari Vecchia”. Emiliano doesn’t leave and doubles: he confirms that Decaro was also there
Michele Emiliano’s story becomes more complicated and shows no signs of abating. Quoting Carlo Emilio Gadda we could call it “that ugly mess from Bari Vecchia”. (We talked about it here yesterday). It all started last Saturday with the fact that the President of the Puglia Region wanted to lend a hand to his protégé, the mayor of Bari Antonio Decaro. The background is the arrest of 130 people and the consequent proceedings by Minister Piantedosi for a possible commissionership of the Municipality of Bari, all according to the law.
Saturday Decaro he calls the square and a demonstration of 10,000 people is organized in favor of the mayor and against the dissolution due to mafia infiltration, something never seen before, and it is on that occasion that Emiliano, with the paternalistic manner of someone who knows how to solve problems, puts his hand on the arm of the mayor and talks about when Decaro was a councilor in his council and had been threatened for wanting to put the restricted traffic zone in Bari Vecchia. So he, Emiliano, took him to meet the sister of the local boss to make him safe, so to speak, instead of reporting everything to the authorities, as a former magistrate should have done.
Initially Decaro is moved and seems grateful for his friend’s story. After a few hours, however, he realizes that the story is not exactly edifying for him and he denies everything by saying that his friend doesn’t remember well and he, an anti-mafia mayor under guard, has nothing to do with these things and above all with sisters of the bosses. Meanwhile, controversy mounts on social media. A few hours later a photo emerges of Decaro hugging another of the boss’s sisters and one of his young nieces. At that point the issue becomes further complicated because the mayor is forced to say that yes, perhaps he met her but not at home, but on the public road, as if the place was important. In the meantime, Emiliano doesn’t think about it at all and says that he remembers well and it’s Decaro who remembers badly: they actually met the boss’s sister at home. So whoever thought that Emiliano would back down was served.
In the Corriere della Sera the president of the Puglia Region insists and doubles: “I this fact of when Decaro and I went to Capriati’s sister after he had been threatened for the closure to traffic of that piece of Old Bari I had already told it a thousand times, without anyone changing the meaning as has been done in the last few hours. Some of these times I had also told it in the presence of Antonio, who had had nothing to object to… Now, for heaven’s sake, eighteen years have passed, I can’t expect others to have the memory I have. Capriati’s sister knew me very well, as mayor but also as a magistrate who had sent her brother to life imprisonment; Antonio didn’t know him, he had never seen him before her, for her he was a councilor like any other and today perhaps she doesn’t recognize in the mayor of Bari the person that he had seen with me then… ”.
But then on there Republic at 8.41pm on March 25th another interview entitled: Michele Emiliano: “With Decaro from the boss’s sister? It’s possible that he wasn’t there. The Prosecutor’s Office could not have done anything.” So we are at the denial of the denial of the denial, in an incredible little scene that is wrapping around itself, thinking that Italians are all stupid. And in fact, yesterday evening, a recording of an interview with TeleNorba also emerged from the magical recesses of the Internet in which Emiliano told the exact same things he told last Saturday and Decaro remained silent. The story is so incredible that some even think it was friendly fire, also because the left-wing newspapers are finally starting to talk about a “mess”. La Stampa headlines: “This is how Emiliano and De Luca trip up the Democratic Party” (who doesn’t realize it, we add). The improvident Elly Schlein instead of quickly dumping the two he tries to defend them. It remains an incredible, typically Italian affair, whose only worthy conclusion would be the resignation of both the mayor of Bari and the president of the Puglia region.