Ottaviano Del Turco, former president of the Abruzzo region, vice-secretary of the CGIL, secretary of the Socialist Party (PSI), and former Minister of Finance from 2000 to 2001, has passed away at the age of 79. The news was announced by his son Guido in a post on Facebook. “Goodbye dad. I loved you. So much. And thank you for allowing me to be by your side for 15 years, when the sea got rough,” he wrote.
A politician and trade unionist, Del Turco was born in Collelongo, in the province of L’Aquila. Throughout his long career, he was a CGIL trade unionist, the last national secretary of the PSI (1993-1994), Minister of Finance in the Amato government (2000-2001), president of the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission from 1996 to 2000, and president of the Abruzzo Region (2005-2008). He was also a member of the national leadership of the Democratic Party.
In recent years, he found himself at the center of a political-institutional case because, despite being seriously ill, he had his pension revoked by the Senate presidency office due to a definitive sentence of 3 years and 11 months pronounced by the Court of Cassation in October 2018 for undue inducement, in the investigation into the so-called Abruzzese Sanitopoli, which had also led to his arrest in July 2008.
A good part of the accusations then made against the former PSI secretary turned out to be unfounded, the most infamous one being: criminal association. With that accusation falling away, along with the charges of corruption and forgery, according to his lawyers, the charge of undue inducement should have also crumbled. This opinion was not shared by the Court of Cassation, which decided to uphold the conviction. Del Turco had hoped to take on a new judicial challenge: the revision of the trial. But his health conditions did not allow him: he was suffering from cancer, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s.
“Ottaviano Del Turco has left us. After years of health and judicial ordeal, he passed away in his home in Collelongo,” writes Bobo Craxi on social media. “A deeply unjust and premature end for a man who served the causes of workers, Italian socialism and represented the interests of his Region and our Nation,” he continues. “We are left with the trade union leader, the political leader, the man who lived with intensity and commitment an important piece of this country’s history in significant positions. We are left with the comrade with whom we fought together, with whom we also debated during a dramatic period of our history, we are left with the friend with whom we talked about art, music, history, and not just politics, and with whom we shared many hours of our lives.” “We are left with a Socialist. Ottaviano was a Socialist by faith and by heart. I express my sorrow to Guido, Cristina, the entire family, and the comrades who alleviated his suffering in these years,” he concludes.
“I express my most sincere condolences and those of the entire regional council to the family and loved ones for the passing of former Regional Council President and former Minister Ottaviano Del Turco,” is the message from the president of the Abruzzo Region, Marco Marsilio. “Ottaviano Del Turco was a victim of bad justice; he was a victim of a massive injustice. A hug to his loved ones, may he rest in peace,” says the leader of IV, Matteo Renzi, on X.