The Court of Cassation annulled without postponement the order of the Court of Review of Catanzaro, issued in the context of the “Nemea” proceeding, which had ordered the reinstatement of precautionary custody in prison for Francesco Parrotta defended by the lawyer Giovanni Vecchio of the Court of Vibo Valentia.
Francesco Parrotta he was arrested in March 2018 in execution of the arrest ordered by the DDA of Catanzaro as part of the “Nemea” proceeding.
In June 2021 there was Parrotta’s first release from prison due to the expiry of the phase deadlines for accepting a defense request. A few days later, however, the Court of Appeal of Catanzaro had once again ordered, at the request of the local Anti-Mafia Prosecutor’s Office, the custody of the accused in prison with reference to a drug trafficking charge (art. 74 Consolidated Narcotics Act) for for which he had never previously been cautioned.
Against this decision, Parrotta’s defense had proposed a request for review to obtain the backdating of the second precautionary measure to the previous one and the Court of Freedom of Catanzaro, accepting these findings, had released the accused. The Catanzaro General Prosecutor’s Office, however, had appealed to the Court of Cassation against this decision, considering the methods of calculating the terms made by the review Court to be incorrect. This appeal was accepted by the Court of legitimacy and the Court of Review of Catanzaro, in the subsequent referral proceedings, reinstated the imprisonment.
Afterwards, Francesco Parrotta’s defense proposed a new request for release due to expiry of the terms phase in the appeal proceedings, motivated by the inapplicability to the aforementioned person of the order suspending the terms of precautionary custody issued by the Court of Appeal of Catanzaro during the period in which he was free. This request was accepted by the Court of Catanzaro, which ordered the defendant’s new release from prison. Against this decision, however, the General Prosecutor’s Office had lodged an appeal before the Court of Review, which had accepted these findings, highlighting that the suspension of the terms of precautionary custody determined by the difficulty of the trial ignores the positions of the individual defendants and, therefore, had to be considered applicable to everyone.
This last order was, however, appealed by the defense of Francesco Parrotta (lawyers Giovanni Vecchio and Bruno Vallelunga) on the assumption that an order suspending the terms of precautionary custody is a measure that affects, by limiting it, personal freedom, so that it can only produce effects on the subjects who are its recipients. And as proof of what was argued, the appealability of such a provision before the Court of Review was recalled, highlighting how this possibility, in the present case, had been precluded to Mr. Parrotta since he, being free at that moment, could not be said to be entitled to bring such an appeal having no concrete interest.
The Court of Cassation accepted the ground of appeal presented by the defense, annulling without postponement the order of the Court of Review of Catanzaro. Parrotta Francesco thus remains at liberty awaiting the conclusion of the trial against him.
