CATANIA. The Court of Appeal of Catania acquitted the former president of the Sicilian Region, Raffaele Lombardo, for competition outside the association and electoral corruption. At the reading of the sentence, the former leader of the MPA was not in the courtroom. The investigation that in ten years of hearings has led to two ‘conflicting’ sentences and an annulment with postponement of the Supreme Court is based on investigations by the carabinieri of the Ros of Catania on relations between politics, entrepreneurs, ‘white-collar workers’ and Cosa Nostra. For the Prosecutor Lombardo he would have favored clans and received votes in the 2008 regional elections, when he was elected governor. Accusations that he has always rejected.
Lombardo was acquitted of the crime of external competition because the fact does not exist, and with the formula for not having committed the crime for the crime of electoral corruption.
A ten-year judicial odyssey
A conviction, an acquittal, an annulment of the acquittal with postponement. Three sentences, all different from each other. And today the fourth sentence. One more acquittal. Almost eleven years have passed since the judicial affair began involving one of the most influential politicians in Sicily, Raffale Lombardo, former President of the Province of Catania, former MEP and former President of the Region and today far from politics. At least officially. Tonight the Court of Appeal of Catania wrote, with the acquittal sentence, yet another final word on the trial against the former Governor, accused of external complicity in mafia association and electoral corruption aggravated by the mafia method. A proceeding opened after the annulment and postponement by the Supreme Court of Cassation of the second degree sentence which had seen the Catania politician acquitted of the accusation of external competition and sentenced to two years, with suspended sentence, for aggravated electoral corruption but without intimidation and violence. A sentence, that of the second degree, which in turn had reformed the one issued on February 19, 2014, with an abbreviated procedure, by the Gup Marina Rizza who had sentenced him to six years and eight months. At the end of the indictment, the two representatives of the prosecution, Agata Santonocito and Sabrina Gambino, after having retraced the most important passages of the sentences that have alternated up to now, asked for Lombardo, who has always been present at the hearings, even today, but not on reading the device, the sentence is seven years and four months.
The investigations have been conducted in these ten years by the carabinieri of the Ros of Catania who have investigated the relationships between politics, entrepreneurs, ‘white-collar workers’ and Cosa Nostra. According to the accusation, the former President Lombardo would have favored the mafia clans in exchange for thousands of votes for the 2008 regional elections, when he was later elected governor. Accusations that the defense of the former President, represented by the lawyers Vincenzo Maiello and Maria Licata, has always rejected. Even today, at the end of the rejoinder, the lawyer Maiello said: «We need to refer to the definition of this legal matter whose consequences, on a personal level but not only on a personal level, are there for all to see. Raffaele Lombardo must be acquitted. He has never entered into agreements with Cosa Nostra. We know we are facing a Court of Appeal that recognizes itself in the rules, in the argumentative techniques. I ask you to declare the insusency of the fact ». And he added: «We trust that the Court of Appeal will free Raffaele Lombardo from this long-standing punishment that distresses him by stating that the fact does not exist and, therefore, affirming that the Region has not been governed by those who have come to terms with Cosa Nostra. Lombardo only made choices against Cosa Nostra ». Recalling to the Court of Appeal chaired by Rosa Angela Castagnola, that in her Lombard council she had chosen two anti-mafia magistrates, Caterina Chinnici and Massimo Russo. The Attorney General, represented in the courtroom by the magistrates Sabrina Gambino and Agata Santonocito, asked for the sentence of Raffaele Lombardo to seven years and four months of imprisonment, considering the reductions provided for by the shortened procedure with which the trial was celebrated. At the center of the proceedings are the alleged contacts of Raffaele Lombardo with members of the Etna clans that the former governor has always denied, claiming to have “harmed the mafia like no one before me”, to “have not met exponents” of the clans and to have “Always fought Cosa Nostra”. For this reason, his lawyers asked for the acquittal of their client “because the fact does not exist”. The proceedings also dealt with alleged electoral favors of the clan to Raffaele Lombardo in the 2008 regional, in which he was elected governor, and to his brother Angelo, for which the proceeding is done separately.
The Attorney General, during the indictment, focused on the assessments on the charge underlining how “the concept of strengthening the association can find an example from a plastic point of view by looking at the world of finance. Let’s think about what happens in the world of finance. finance at stock market prices whenever news of alliances, mergers or separations is spread. Last year, when the news of the merger of the alliance between Fiat and Peugeot spread, the shares belonging to the Fiat Chrysler group flew. , which then did not happen, had the effect of making the shares fly. This is what we believe has actually happened in reference to a criminal group that finds itself playing, on its side, a synallagmatic pact. And this is the effect that this agreement can have for the Cosa Nostra association “. According to the reconstruction of the PG it is not so important to focus on whether or not the Mafia summit was held in the presence of Lombardo, as indicated in the first instance sentence, but to look at the overall fact as “many pieces of the mosaic”. Words that Lombardo rejected. “This request for a sentence of seven years and four months is simply absurd,” he said as he left the courtroom. “For eleven years I have been waiting to know what business, what contracts, concessions or authorizations I would have given to these gentlemen,” he vented on that occasion in an interview. “I did them damage, before and after the 2008 regional elections, no one voted for me because they voted for others – Lombardo still said – The crime of external competition is not that it does not exist but I want to understand who did it. They should just tell us if I’m someone else’s pseudonym, if they’ve mistaken person, if they’ve mistaken me for someone else. ‘ And on the request for a sentence he added: “invented the crime, invented the support, invented the favors and the accusation and consequently also the penalty …”.
“The Attorney General knows that there is not a single action by Lombardo that can be contextualized within the criminal organization – the defense of Lombardo has always said – the accused can be sympathetic or unpleasant but it does not matter, in the process we must demonstrate conduct. We need proofs ». Among the accusing elements mentioned by the prosecution in the course of the indictment is the fact that «it is Lombardo himself who admitted to having had contacts with top-level Mafia exponents. Contacts with Rosario Di Dio, even after the latter’s judicial vicissitudes, contacts with prominent exponents of Calatino; with Raffaele Bevilacqua, with June Giancarlo and Paolo Rizzo. Subjects known at university and then became leading exponents of the mafia organization. And this is how the mafia organization has benefited from the friendship, proximity and availability of Raffaele Lombardo ». Among the “high-level” contacts cited by the prosecution also those with Ciccio La Rocca. «It is he who has a strong relationship with Lombardo. A relationship that is also expressed in the stories of other collaborators of justice and ended up in the proceedings of the trial “. Such as the statements of the repentant Francesco Squillaci, known as Martiddina, who told of some comments with the Caltagirone boss during a period of co-detention in the Opera prison, in 2010, precisely concerning the judicial events related to the former Lombard governor. The old mafia boss would have said to Squillaci: “That was a good Christian and a friend of ours, showing me how much he cared about this person.” The repentant would also have learned from the Strano of a mobilization of all the clans to “vote” the accused.
Lombardo has repeatedly reiterated that “many things have been said that are not true denials by tabulas from the activity I conducted as president of the region and as local administrator”. «After eleven years of trial, based only on false repentants, I am waiting to know what I would have agreed, what advantages I would have obtained and what consents I would have had. While I know the damage I have done to him ». “I continue to have as I have always trusted in justice and I am confident that the truth will soon be re-established.” In the course of spontaneous declarations made in the courtroom, Lombardo had said: “I cannot enroll, to Leonardo Sciascia’s disappointment, in the ranks of anti-mafia professionals, but I have certainly never been silent in politics and I have always demonstrated this with concrete deeds , with the laws. My hostility to the mafia was not made only of chatter ». Then denying his relations with the mafia Rosario Di Dio with a past in politics: “I have never had a common electoral experience with Rosario Di Dio”, he had pronounced in the course of spontaneous declarations. To accuse Lombardo there are some collaborators of justice. including Dario Caruana. He had reported on a confidential meeting, in which topics of tenders and business were discussed, which took place in the first six months of 2003 in a country house on the outskirts of Barrafranca. The meeting would have taken place in the presence of the ” old boss ” of Calatino Ciccio La Rocca, the Enna mafia boss Raffaele Bevilacqua and the colonel of Cosa Nostra from Catania (now deceased) Alfio Mirabile. “entry. Declarations always denied by Lombardo. And today the new sentence. The fourth.”