The Court of Appeal of Catania acquitted the former president of the Sicilian Region, Raffaele Lombardo, for competition outside the association and electoral corruption.
The Court acquitted Lombardo from the charge of external competition because the fact does not exist and from that of an electoral crime aggravated by having favored the mafia for not having committed the fact.
At the reading of the sentence, the former leader of the MPA was not in the courtroom. The investigation that in ten years of hearings has led to two 'conflicting' sentences and an annulment with postponement of the Supreme Court is based on investigations by the carabinieri of the Ros of Catania on relations between politics, entrepreneurs, 'white-collar workers' and Cosa Nostra. For the Prosecutor Lombardo he would have favored clans and received votes in the 2008 regional elections, when he was elected governor. Accusations that he has always rejected.
The prosecutor, with the prosecutors Sabrina Gambino and Agata Santonocito, had asked for the sentence of Raffaele Lombardo, to seven years and four months of imprisonment, for access to the shortened procedure. At the center of the trial the alleged contacts of Raffaele Lombardo with members of the Etna clans that the former governor has always denied, claiming to have "harmed the mafia like no one before me", to "have not met exponents" of the clans and to have "always fought Cosa Nostra". For this reason his lawyers, the lawyers Maria Licata and professor Vincenzo Maiello, asked for the acquittal of their client "because the fact does not exist". The proceedings also dealt with alleged electoral favors of the clan to Raffaele Lombardo in the 2008 regional, in which he was elected governor,and to his brother Angelo, for whom we proceed separately, for the policies of the same year. The Second Criminal Section of the Supreme Court, three years ago, canceled with postponement the sentence issued on March 31, 2017 by the Court of Appeal of Catania which had acquitted the former governor from the accusation of external complicity in a mafia association and had sentenced him to two years (suspended sentence) for electoral corruption aggravated by the mafia method, but without intimidation and violence.former governor and had sentenced him to two years (suspended sentence) for electoral corruption aggravated by the mafia method, but without intimidation and violence.former governor and had sentenced him to two years (suspended sentence) for electoral corruption aggravated by the mafia method, but without intimidation and violence.
A sentence, that of the second degree, which had reformed the one issued on 19 February 2014, with an abbreviated procedure, by the Gup Marina Rizza who had sentenced him to six years and eight months for external complicity with the mafia association, considering him, among other things, "arbiter" and "moderator" of the relations between the mafia, politics and business. In the motivations, the Court of Appeal of Catania, in reforming the first degree sentence, had found that "the summit between the mafia leaders and Raffaele Lombardo in June 2003 at the home" of the former president of the Region, one of the pillars of the accusation, "it is a fact absolutely devoid of evidentiary confirmation". Instead, according to the second degree judges, "the relations between Lombardo and members of the mafia,who would have acted to facilitate his election, but from which they would not have received any favors. "The Court of Appeal had challenged his electoral corruption with the aggravating circumstance of having favored the mafia, which does not use violence or intimidate, but buys the votes with money, shopping vouchers and favors. A decision not shared by the Supreme Court which "in accepting the appeal of the Catania Attorney General" had then annulled "the sentence with referral to another section" of the Court of Appeal of Catania, before which the new trial was held.shopping vouchers and favors. A decision not shared by the Supreme Court which "in accepting the appeal of the Catania Attorney General" then annulled "the sentence with referral to another section" of the Court of Appeal of Catania, before which the new trial was held.shopping vouchers and favors. A decision not shared by the Supreme Court which "in accepting the appeal of the Catania Attorney General" then annulled "the sentence with referral to another section" of the Court of Appeal of Catania, before which the new trial was held.
