The Milan Prosecutor’s Office has decided to open an investigation into the case of the Carabiniere Chief Marshal who on Saturday 27 January, during the pro-Palestine demonstrations that were being held in the Lombardy capital, told the protester Franca Caffa (94-year-old former municipal councilor of the PRC , founder of the Molise-Calvairate-Ponti tenants committee) of not recognizing the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella: “I didn’t vote for him, I didn’t choose him, I don’t recognize him”. The video of the conversation between the two filmed by Local Team has gone viral, bouncing around all social media, and will have to be analyzed in the appropriate places. Now the apologies have arrived from the policeman (identified as GM): “The President of the Republic is my symbol. I found myself saying a stupid and not really thought out phrase, I am mortified. I apologize, my priority was to remove an elderly lady from problems caused by any charges”. The immediate transfer from the general command of the force will be arranged for him. For the mayor of Milan Beppe Sala what happened “aside from being a serious fact, it is also a bit sad”. Caffa also returned to the matter: “I feel sorry for this man. But his words didn’t seem to me to be on the side of the people, they showed a lack of conscience. They made me lose heart.”
The investigations and the transfer
The Milan prosecutor Marcello Viola was directly informed of the episode. An information from the Carabinieri is now awaited at the Prosecutor’s Office. Then the case against the soldier will be registered. Given that it will be up to the prosecutors to make the appropriate assessments, we can currently hypothesize the crime of “offending the honor or prestige of the President of the Republic”. In the meantime, the force has informed that the carabiniere will be transferred immediately to a non-operational position and says that all necessary disciplinary measures will also be adopted. The general secretary of USIC, Antonio Tarallo, said that the Carabiniere’s colleagues “describe him as a joker, who may have said those words too superficially” and that now “we need to understand if he believed in what he said or if it was a way to cut short the protesters.” However, Tarallo added that he distanced himself from what happened: “The Carabinieri is therefore right to get to the bottom of it and verify all possible actions to understand what actually happened.”
What happened
During the pro-Palestine protests last Saturday, Franca Caffa was among the demonstrators who attempted to march and were blocked in Via Padova. To one of the policemen in riot gear nearby, the 94-year-old asked: “What did your President say? What did Mattarella say?”, referring to the declarations that Israel should not deny the Palestinian people the right to a state. Then the response that created the storm: “With all due respect, ma’am, you are not my president.” Caffa then asks another question: “What country is he from?”. He replies: “I didn’t vote for him, I didn’t choose him, I don’t recognize him.”
Caffa: “Disconcerted”
Interviewed byANSA, Caffa said she was “disconcerted” by the policeman’s response: “Why did he dare to say that? Even if he doesn’t agree with Mattarella’s way of acting as president, and this is legitimate, the fact remains that he is the president of all”. Caffa, who last Sant’Ambrogio received the certificate of Civic Merit from the Municipality of Milan, explains however that she took to the streets because “it’s about wanting just policies”, also “in coherence with the tragic story of the persecution of the Jews ” which now “should not be repeated to the detriment of the Palestinians”. Even more so because Remembrance Day was celebrated on January 27th.
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Sala: “The institutions cannot say something like that”
Beppe Sala also spoke on the episode. “None of us who work for the institutions and who feel like an institution, therefore the mayor but also a policeman – he said on the sidelines of the commemoration for the 45th anniversary of the death of judge Emilio Alessandrini – can afford to say something like that”. For the first citizen of Milan the fact is even more serious because it refers to “a president like Mattarella, who in recent years has demonstrated extraordinary and fundamental steadfastness, ability and clarity for this country”. Then, specifying that he should not be the one to decide “that measures are taken”, he concludes however that “if we decide to want to be institutions and to do our part we must know the rules and behaviors and we don’t behave like this”.