The Court of Appeal of Reggio Calabria has definitively acquitted the leader of ScN and mayor of Taormina Cateno De Luca of the charge of aggravated and continued defamation against the then Attorney General of Messina Vincenzo Barbaro. De Luca had been convicted by another section of the Reggio court but last March the Supreme Court annulled it with postponement. In addition to filing a complaint, Barbaro had also taken civil action requesting compensation for damages.
«Apart from the regret and human suffering experienced by De Luca and his family, acknowledging that there is a judge in Berlin is always a good and reassuring thing – says the lawyer Carlo Taormina, lawyer for the regional parliamentarian -. Now Barbaro, who had also questionably asked for hundreds of thousands of euros in compensation for damages, will have to resign himself to paying the costs of the civil trial still underway, while the passage of time saves him from a trial for slander perpetrated against De Luca”.
On the matter, the former Attorney General Barbaro declared: «SI am proud of how I have been a magistrate for more than 40 years; Unfortunately I have to note that the values I believed in, i.e. impartiality, commitment, study of the papers, have largely disappeared, and that therefore the criticisms that are heard on a daily basis about the work of the judiciary are not unfounded».