“Motivation completely absent or apparent”. With these words, the Court of Cassation explains why he canceled the acquittal sentence with postponement, pronounced by the Court of Appeal of Catanzaro, against the former mayor of Rende, Sandro Principe, And of other politicians, who ended up in the investigation into the mafia and politics called “Rende system”. The Supreme Court, in recent weeks, has decided that the trial will have to be redone for the former mayor of Rende Umberto Bernaudo and for the former municipal councilors Pietro Ruffolo And Giuseppe Gagliardi. The four had been acquitted both at first instance by the Court of Cosenza and in the second instance of judgment by the Catanzaro judges. They are accused of external competition in the mafia association, exchange vote and, as regards Gagliardi, the crime of corruption is also contested. But the deputy PG of Catanzaro Raffaella Sforza had filed an appeal, considering the reasons for the judges on the acquittals lacking.
“We are in the presence of a completely missing or in any case apparent motivation – the judges of the Cassation write – given that” on the subject of appeal sentence, incur the judge in an apparent motivation that is limited to a mere review of the test elements taken during the process, without taking into account the specific defensive deductions, also omitting, also to provide adequate explanation about the unfounding, indifference or indifference. superfluity of opposite topics with the appeal ».
“And in the case in question – according to the magistrates – the appearance of the motivation is even more evident because the contested sentence has not even reviewed the test elements taken in the first instance judgment, limiting itself only to reiterating its conclusions”. The judges of the Supreme Court explain, in detail, because those reasons are lacking by referring also to what is highlighted by the defenses: “In the oral discussion of the appeal – reads – the defender of the princes and Gagliardi defendants insisted on the thesis that the act of appeal of the public prosecutor would have been inadmissible for lack of specificity, and, therefore, this appeal should be considered in any case inadmissible. The defender of the Prince and Gagliardi defendants, however, exactly like the contested sentence, did not indicate even a logical passage of the first instance sentence with which the act of appeal would not have confronted himself and which should lead to considering him inadmissible for lack of specificity, limiting himself to remembering the principle of law in the abstract without ever going into the details that would demonstrate the applicability of the same to the case in question “.
According to the investigation conducted by the then prosecutor Pierpaolo Bruni (now chief prosecutor to Santa Maria Capua Vetere), politicians and administrators Rende would have entered into a political-mafia pact thanks to which they would have obtained electoral support in exchange for favors such as hiring in some cooperatives of the Municipality. Now the word belongs to the judges of another section of the Court of Appeal of Catanzaro.