“I said everything, everything…’ Thus Aldo Spinelli at the end of the interrogation before the investigating judge Paola Faggioni confirmed that he had answered the investigators’ questions.
It lasted just under half an hour the guarantee interrogation of Matteo Cozzani, former mayor of Porto Venere and head of Giovanni Toti’s cabinet, arrested on charges of corruption and disrupting the freedom of auctions as part of the investigation that shook the Liguria region. Cozzani made some spontaneous statements in front of the investigating judge Mario De Bellis. He showed up just before 9am at the Palace of Justice of La Spezia accompanied by the lawyer Massimo Ceresa Gastaldo, entering hearing room number 12. “He is calm and calm in being able to clarify all the charges, which he contests, despite living in a situation not simple. At the moment he is not yet able to answer on the merits – the lawyer Gastaldo told reporters as he left the courthouse – and pointed out that the precautionary needs, from our point of view, do not exist because he does not cover from years in office as mayor of Porto Venere and also because, due to the media outcry surrounding the affair, he will no longer hold the role of head of cabinet”. Shortly before, Matteo Cozzani’s brother, the entrepreneur Filippo Cozzani, had in turn appeared before the judges together with his lawyer Luca Bicci.
IGuarantee interrogation today also for the former councilor of Esselunga investigated and subjected to interdiction as part of the investigation which subjected the president of the Liguria Region Toti to house arrest.
“The issue is Genoa but the issue is also the entire country. We need to understand if it is only linked to the facts we read, it seems quite worrying to me, in the sense that no company will take on a public contract again, perhaps after having been to an electoral dinner” . He underlines it Edoardo Rixi, Deputy Minister of Infrastructure and Mobility interviewed on 24 Mattino on Radio 24.
“What happens is that works are done to ingratiate oneself with an entrepreneur who gives you 70 thousand euros, we are at the beginning of a ‘cinema’ that will last years and which risks blocking all the construction sites”, notes Rixi.
For Rixi there is also “a problem of method: the first thing that emerges clearly, regardless of how one thinks, is that the current law on party financing is not good and must be rewritten immediately, the public contribution must return or There has to be some form of protection.”
“We have gone from acts that according to the investigators would already be null or flawed in 2020-2021, we are in 2024 and therefore all the subsequent acts today, reading the interpretations, are seen in a different light, this is the theme. Even things that perhaps in themselves If they wouldn’t have problems, they in turn risk being spoiled, so there could be a chain effect not only on the port but on many contracts, also on the Alessandria rear port for Piedmont for example or otherwise”, concludes Rixi.
Bucci: “I’m playing massacre, I’m not in it” – “I have no reason to think of being involved, and in any case I must remain in my position as mayor. But I could also decide to resign. As Oscar Luigi Scalfaro said, to whom I certainly don’t dare compare myself, in this game of massacre I don’t I’m with you. I ask for clarity, also on my position.” Thus, in an interview with Corriere della Sera, the mayor of Genoa Marco Bucci. “I can’t wait to be able to speak with the magistrates. I am available to discuss every aspect that concerns my person and my activity” he underlines. To the question ‘Do you feel betrayed by someone?’ he replies: “Obviously. I’m the one who stood up to my colleagues from Reggio Emilia and Turin over the nomination of Paolo Emilio Signorini as head of Iren. If certain of his behaviors are true, this is a serious betrayal of my trust”. On Toti, Bucci adds: “I have worked a lot and well with the president and I still hope to be able to work with him again. I have said it and I repeat it. I know nothing about his relationships with other people. But if certain things are true, it’s a problem for me too, on a personal level.”
The investigation into corruption in Liguria launched by the Genoa prosecutor’s office and the DDA also affects healthcare. As anticipated today by some newspapers, these are two strands, one relating to Covid vaccines and one which instead concerns alleged illicit financing of Toti by private healthcare entrepreneurs.
As regards the alleged crime of forgery, governor Giovanni Toti and his now former chief of staff Matteo Cozzani, both under house arrest, are under investigation for the Covid data: according to one of the prosecutor’s hypotheses the numbers would have been inflated to obtain more vaccines from the commissioner structure.
Among the interceptions initiated by the investigators, one in particular concerns the topic. The ‘bugs’ installed in Cozzani’s office – already under investigation for alleged electoral corruption – record a conversation. Cozzani is talking about the difficulty of obtaining vaccines: “What was the problem… that I had already rigged it, he took them, what happened increased them again”, says the head of the cabinet. That “he” is President Toti: “When he sent them back to me I wrote to him ‘but fuck pres, but I’m out’ and he said ‘but I increased them a bit’ and I said ‘but I had already done it ‘, and he says ‘fuck tell me you’ve already done it, wait a second’.. oh well”.
The second line of investigation, however, is decidedly more complex, and follows the main one. The investigators are in fact investigating the funding that entrepreneurs from the healthcare world allegedly gave to Toti’s electoral committees.
Completely usual and legitimate maneuvers, but the suspicion is that contracts and agreements have arrived in exchange for these loans. The focus is on loans to the Change Foundation exceeding 40 thousand euros made, according to the investigators, by some entities active in the private and affiliated healthcare sector. Like Casa della Salute, a network of specialist clinics controlled by the Italmobiliare group of the Pesenti family which has experienced a real boom in Liguria. Born in 2013, it now has 29 facilities that employ 900 people, including 450 doctors. It is present in Bordighera, Ventimiglia, Sanremo, Albenga, Savona, Cairo Montenotte. And he started contributing to Toti’s Committee. Who reciprocated by presenting one of their events in the Region’s Hall of Transparency, during which both he and the mayor of Genoa Bucci spoke. Among the financiers also Iclas of Rapallo of the Gvm group, HC hospital and On health care.
There are three-four financiers under the attention of the Genoa prosecutors, in addition to the 20 companies operating in other sectors that have come under the radar of the bribery investigation.
Investigating the vote exchange between the Riesi and Calabrian communities and the list of president Giovanni Toti, investigators have also discovered a massive fraud worth one million and 200 thousand euros on healthcare supplies during Covid. In particular masks, unobtainable in the midst of the pandemic and as precious as gold in phase two for schools and public places. This is what emerges from the papers filed as part of the investigation that led the President of the Region to house arrest.
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