Vibo Valentia, Scott Rebirth trial: 11 years to former senator Giancarlo Pittelli

It is not the highest sentence that has been imposed but certainly the one that makes the most noise. After more than a month of deliberation, the Court of Vibo Valentia sentenced the lawyer to eleven years in prison for external complicity in a mafia association Giancarlo Pittelli, former senator first of Forza Italia, then of Fdi. Even for the judges he is the gray eminence who for years has whispered in the ear of Luigi Mancuso certainly not just procedural strategies.

Pittelli: “I am the victim of a conspiracy”

The Catanzaro anti-mafia prosecutor’s office which was Nicola Gratteri, now the leader in Naples, accused him of having made “his significant wealth of knowledge and privileged relationships with leading exponents at a political-institutional level, in the business world and in the professions” available to the head of the Mancuso clan. Controversies arose, even committees in defense of the senator who has always said he was the victim of a conspiracy or a misunderstanding, despite the investigations which – one after the other – began to list his contacts and relationships around the world of the clans.

When he switches to Fdi, Meloni: “It will be an added value”

But the judges on Pittelli were crystal clear: the accusatory system is solid, the former senator – they established – was a man from Mancuso’s very close entourage. A high-ranking Freemason, he was the leading man of Forza Italia, whose moves and secrets he knew from the very beginning if it is true that he – intercepted – revealed: “Dell’Utri, the first person he contacted for the formation of Forza Italy, it was Piromalli in Gioia Tauro”. When in controversy with the party founded by Berlusconi passed to Fratelli d’Italia, Giorgia Meloni she herself commented happily: “It will be an added value”.

The accusatory system confirmed: the extensive and varied criminal mosaic

“The first impression that can be given of the device is that the system with reference to the articulation and structure of the ‘Ndrangheta association that constitutes this hood in the province of Vibo Valentia is substantially confirmed”, says the deputy prosecutor Vincenzo Capomollawho together with the chief prosecutor Gratteri coordinated the pool of magistrates – Annamaria Frustaci, Antonio De Bernardo, Andrea Mancuso – who worked on the investigation. The sentence is broad and will have to be studied, some accusations of mafia association have been declassified in external competition and everything – he explains – will have to be carefully examined also in view of the appeal. But the trial, which for years was the subject of fierce criticism, with the DDA accused of “trawling” held up. And it returns with the force of a sentence the detailed image of an extensive and varied criminal mosaic, capable of keeping together picciotti and politicians, drug brokers and professionals, killers “with a cemetery on their shoulders” and infidel uniforms. And for all or almost all the sentences were very heavy.

The others convicted, including former Dia agents and entrepreneurs

The sentence imposed on the former Dia agent who joined the services is ten years Michele Marinarowho blew the secrets that the collaborator had into Pittelli’s ear Andrea Mantella was revealing to the magistrates, of two years and six months, the one decided for the former captain of the carabinieri Giorgio Naselli and four were imposed on the former commander of the municipal police of Vibo Valentia Filippo Nesci. The lawyer will have to serve 14 years in prison Francesco Stilo, legal available to the clans not only for defensive activities. Entrepreneurs were also condemned Mario and Umberto Artusa (21 years and 18 years in prison respectively), Mario Lo Riggio (17 years), Gianfranco Ferrante (20 years and 2 months). A sentence also comes for Pietro Giamborinoformer regional councilor who for the Catanzaro anti-mafia prosecutor’s office had been built around the table by the clans of Piscopio, to whom he would have sold himself by bartering votes in exchange for jobs and contracts. The magistrates had asked for 20 years in prison for him, but the court set a sentence of only one and a half years. He will have to wait for the reasons to understand what did not convince the judges, who instead acquitted the former mayor of Pizzo and former president of Anci Calabria Gianluca Callipo. For the Catanzaro DDA he was not only an entrepreneur but also an administrator serving the clans and for this reason a sentence of 18 years in prison was requested for him.

Bosses, wingmen, drug brokers

Hundreds of years of prison. The Court of Vibo Valentia sentenced the boss Saverio Rational (30 years in prison), the former fugitive Pasquale Bonavota (28 years old), arrested in recent months in Genoa, the bosses Domenico and Nicola Bonavota (30 and 26 years of imprisonment respectively), Domenico Cugliari (22 years and 6 months), Antonio Larosa (24 years and 6 months), Paolino Lo Bianco (30 years), Antonio Macrì (20 years and 10 months), Salvatore Morelli (28 years and 4 months), Valerio Navarra (23 years), Agostino Papaianni (20 years), Apulian Rosary (28 years old) e Antonio Vacatello (30 years).

Three generations of the same families

Among the accused there are also three generations of the same families – grandfather, father, grandson – all accused in various capacities of mafia association, external complicity in mafia association, extortion, usury, money laundering, illegal possession of weapons and explosives, receiving stolen goods, trafficking of illicit influences, fraudulent transfer of values, disclosure and use of official secrecy, aggravated abuse of office, drug trafficking. A ferocious criminal galaxy, capable of relating to different and distant worlds on paper, from politics to professions, in reality precious social capital capable of multiplying power and business. A hood that has suffocated the Vibo area for decades and is starting to be torn to pieces.