It could be defined as the strange judicial case of the former mayor of Messina Renato Accorinti, historic activist of the No Bridge movement and always a convinced and fervent environmentalist. That on the same day, being involved in two separate trials, in the first he receives a light sentence, suspended, and in the second he is sent back to trial. All this for the management of landfills in Messina during his mandate. He himself, who even during his time as mayor, always put environmental issues first. The proceedings in which he was criminally involved from the point of view of administrative management, handled today in a singular case on the same day at the Palace of Justice, are at a different stage in terms of timing.
The landfill discovered in Maregrosso
The first is that of the landfill that was discovered in the southern area of Maregrosso, one of the most beautiful areas of Messina, degraded after years and years of neglect and illegal deposits. A beach where once upon a time, when it was still an untouched area, even the poet Giovani Pascoli, who taught at the University of Messina, walked there.
The Vallone Guidari landfill
The second is that of the management of the Vallone Guidari landfill, the subject of a new investigation opened in the Prosecutor’s Office in 2020. An immense area of approximately 15 thousand square meters, still there as an “orphan site”, and only in November 2024 did the Region approve the executive project for closure, safety and environmental restoration.
Also on trial, among others, is the former mayor Cateno De Luca
For the Maregrosso affair, at the conclusion of the first instance trial, the former mayor Accorinti was sentenced to one year and four months in prison, while two other municipal officials in the environmental sector received two other light sentences, taking advantage of the suspended sentence. For the story of Vallone Guidari, which is still at the stage of the preliminary hearing, the former mayor Accorinti was again committed today by the Pugliese preliminary hearing judge together with 13 other defendants, including another former mayor of Messina, Cateno De Luca, now a regional deputy and leader of South calls North, the former councilor for the Environment Dafne Musolino, now a national parliamentarian of Italia Viva, and the former president of MessinaServizi, current regional deputy of South calls North, Pippo Lombardo. The trial, in this second case, obviously has yet to begin, it will begin on January 28th.