Mimmo Lucano, the judge doubles the sentence compared to the requests of the prosecutors: that’s why (waiting to read the reasons)

A very heavy sentence, which even appears abnormal if you compare it to other cases. The Locri Court sentenced Mimmo Lucano a 13 years and 2 months of prison, doubling the request of prosecutors Michele Permunian e Marzia Currao (7 years and 11 months). But what was theformer mayor of Riace? And how it was possible to get to one penalty so high? Pending the reasons – they will be filed in 90 days – on device together with charges it can help to make some assumptions. And to draw some fixed points. For example, Lucano it did not favor illegal immigration: that accusation, in which it was insinuated that he had organized “weddings of convenience between resident citizens and foreign women in order to illegally favor the permanence of the latter in the Italian territory “, was retreat from the prosecutors even before reaching a sentence. The sentences instead are for a long list of crimes against the public administration, public faith and the heritage: criminal association aimed at “committing an indefinite number of crimes”, false in public deed and in certificate, aggravated fraud for obtaining public funds, abuse of office e embezzlement.

In their request, the prosecutors considered them all united by the bond of continuation, that is “executive of the same criminal design“: In these cases, to calculate the penalty, the one inflicted for the more serious offense (basic penalty) and increase it up to triple. The most serious crime is embezzlement, punished from four to ten years: the prosecution asked to starting from the minimum, four years, doubling it to nearly eight. The judges instead made a different choice: they have separate two “criminal designs”, doubling the basic penalties and consequently increasing the size of the sentence. The first – the most serious – includes conspiracy, forgery, embezzlement and ten different aggravated frauds, and alone produced a sentence of 10 years and 4 months of prison. How did it come about? Evidently – is the thought of many insiders – not starting from the four-year sentence, as requested by the prosecutors, but from a higher one. Because? The reason may lie in the fact that the embezzlement for which Lucano was convicted concerns one very high sum, almost 800 thousand euros, which hardly justifies a penalty reduced to a minimum.

To these 10 years and 4 months others must be added 2 years and 10 months for the second group of offenses, which includes three different forms of abuse of office (the most serious offense) and the false certificate for having issued a identity card to a Nigerian citizen who was not a resident of Riace. Thus we arrive at the 13 years and 2 months inflicted on the former mayor. Another factor was also a factor: the retraining – made ex officio by the judges – of one of the abuses of office in aggravated fraud for the achievement of public funds. Furthermore, neither Lucano nor any other of the 26 defendants were granted the generic mitigating circumstances, they could not even have been motivated with theabsence of a criminal record. “It is a disconcerting sentence that proves one repressive will difficult to explain in relation to the Riace model ”, says al fattoquotidiano.it Lorenzo Trucco, defender of three defendants (including Lemlem Tesfahun, companion of the former mayor) and president of theAssociation of legal studies on immigration. “In forty years of career I have not never seen to inflict double the penalty requested by the prosecution. And that embezzlement for hundreds of thousands of euros it is absurd, considering that Lucano does not have a penny in his pocket ”.

Yes, because the indictment reads that the former mayor and other defendants “systematically appropriate”Of“ huge public funds destined for the management of the reception of refugees ”. The most important episode underlying the sentence is the use of 251.842,78 euro for “purchase, furniture e renovation of three houses and an oil mill not reported in the aforementioned projects and used for private purposes“. It is also stated that Lucano has “withdrawn and / or in any case handled cash, drawn from the association’s current accounts, without any justification (documents, receipts, notes, etc.) in the reporting and accounting “for a total of € 92,856.90, as well as” charged to the Sprar for the costs generated by thetelephone number in exclusive use ”to the partner for 2,209 euros. And nevertheless the investigating judge of Locri, in the order with which he had placed the then first citizen under house arrest, had spoken of “Marchiane inaccuracies” e “conjecture”Precisely on the diversion of funds, underlining that Lucano had never earned a euro from the conduct of which he was accused. “Peculated? It’s like accusing of murder a corpse“Said his lawyer Andrea D’Aqua immediately after reading the device. There remain two other degrees of judgment as to whether it is true.

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