The new trial for the ordinary rites for the Giostra mafia group, code-named “Totem”, which returned to Messina after a postponement by the Supreme Court, was concluded in the second instance, before the criminal section of the court of appeal presided over by judge Carmelo Blatti. last June.
However, at the center of the debate, given that the responsibility has now been established and has become definitive, there was only the redetermination of the sentence.
It is the 2016 investigation into the reorganization of the Giostra mafia clan under the “regency” of Luigi Tibia, who looked not only at traditional “sectors” such as drugs and extortion but had expanded business with the entertainment industry at the time, of seaside beaches, and of the so-called “slot machines” (the “Totems”, precisely).
Last June it was the VI criminal section of the Supreme Court that decided everything. The judges had annulled with postponement the previous appeal sentence for Vincenzo Misa, only for the crime of association, the only crime for which he had been sentenced to 12 years in prison. For Misa, therefore, the trial had to be redone on the merits.
And again they had canceled with postponement – but limited to the determination of the sanctioning treatment – to verify whether the so-called modification in peius can be applied for the crime of association for all the other defendants, i.e. Luigi Tibia, Paolo Aloisio, Giuseppe Molonia, Calogero Smiraglia, Giuseppe Schepis, Paolo Mercirio, Massimo Bruno, Teorodo Lisitano, Luciano De Leo and Antonio Musolino, against whom it was, the assessment of responsibility for all the contested crimes becomes irrevocable.
The civil party in the proceedings was the Addiopizzo onlus committee of Messina.
Last November 14, with the deputy general prosecutor Giuseppe Costa present for the prosecution, the lawyers formalized the proposed sentences agreed between the prosecution and the defence, which were essentially 9 years and 6 months for all the accused except for Tibia ( his was taller, 14 years and 5 months).
Yesterday the proceedings concluded, with the discussion on the merits only of Misa’s position, with the intervention of her defenders, the lawyers Salvatore Silvestro and Pietro Luccisano. The judges in sentencing, after having ratified all the plea agreements, therefore deeming them appropriate, then acquitted Misa of all charges with the formula “for not having committed the crime”. In this regard, the two lawyers, Luccisano and Silvestro, declare: «The acquittal of Vincenzo Misa, after the referral from the Supreme Court and almost six years of precautionary custody in prison, has demonstrated, once again, that a procedural position must be evaluated at the end of the process and not during the various phases which may well undergo radical changes, as in this case”.
There are several lawyers involved in the defense in this long procedural affair, the lawyers Alessandro Billè, Salvatore Silvestro, Carlo Autru Ryolo, Ettore Schillaci, Antonello Scordo, Nico D’Ascola, Maurizio Scarpari, Giuseppe Donato, Giuseppe Serafino and Pietro Luccisano.
