Last round of defense arguments, opportunity for replies from the Prosecutor’s Office and rejoinders from the lawyers, chambers and sentence. The trial with the abbreviated “Arangea bis” procedure is entering its final phase. One more hearing and there will be a first degree verdict. Yesterday before the judge of the preliminary hearing, Cristina Foti, the defense tried to undermine the heavy conclusions of the anti-mafia district prosecutor who accuses the 23 defendants of a series of hypotheses of crimes as heavy as a boulder, of having taken part in the ‘ndrangheta contexts that operated in the hamlet on the southern outskirts of the city, Arangea, therefore a mafia association and above all a series of episodes of an extortion nature. A framework of accusation already exposed with rigor and depth of arguments by the public prosecutor Nicola De Caria who during the indictment reiterated the individual criminal responsibilities asking for sentences of three and a half centuries in prison. Penalties reaching 20 years of imprisonment for those who, according to the investigators, held top positions and were the promoters of the hegemonic criminal association in the Arangea district.
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