New judicial development in the context of the “Millennium” anti-mafia operation. The Court of Cassation, sixth criminal section, has ordered for the third time the annulment and postponement of the prison custody order issued against Rocco Ielasi, involved in the investigation by the Reggio Calabria DDA for association aimed at drug trafficking and defended by the lawyer. Vincenzo Nobile. The decision represents the last chapter of a complex procedural story that began with the precautionary measure issued by the investigating judge of the Court of Reggio Calabria as part of the maxi operation “Millennium”. Already on a first occasion the Supreme Court had annulled the order of the Court of Review of Reggio Calabria, deeming inadequate the reasoning given in support of the serious indications of guilt relating to the associative hypothesis and the contested aggravating circumstances. Subsequently, in the second referral proceedings, the Court of Cassation had once again censured the provision, highlighting how the genetic order, as claimed by the defender, did not contain specific and individualising elements towards the 39-year-old Ielasi in relation to the mafia aggravating circumstance provided for by article 416 bis 1 of the Criminal Code, both with reference to the so-called mafia method and in terms of mafia facilitation.
Following this decision, the Court of Freedom had excluded the existence of the aggravating circumstances, recognizing the absence of further specific elements that justified their maintenance against the suspect. However, the judges still considered the precautionary needs to be persistent, confirming the prison sentence on the basis of the association’s dispute regarding drugs. Of particular importance was the passage with which the Review had deemed the measure of house arrest to be inadequate, observing that Ielasi’s residence in the municipality of Platì, indicated as the territory of operation of the Barbaro gang, did not allow the risk of repetition of the crime to be excluded. Precisely this aspect was at the center of the new appeal presented by the lawyer Nobile. The defense argued the illogicality of the motivation, highlighting how the mere coincidence between the place of residence of the suspect and the area of operation of the gang cannot constitute, in itself, a sufficient reason to deny a less afflictive precautionary measure, especially after the same aggravated charges of a mafia nature had been excluded. The Court of Cassation once again accepted the defense complaints, ordering for the third time the annulment of the contested order and sending the documents back to the Court of Reggio Calabria for new examination.