VERBANIA. A tug of war between the public prosecutor’s office and the GUP of Verbania in front of which the preliminary hearing for the Mottarone tragedy is being held. The prosecutor Olimpia Bossi and the pm Laura Carrera today in the courtroom announced that they have decided not to do not change the charges brought against the defendants without therefore sharing the request made last July 23 by Judge Rosa Maria Fornelli. The public prosecutors have therefore requested the return of the file. The court will return on October 10.
Last July 23, the preliminary hearing judge Rosa Maria Fornelli, instead of deciding on the request for indictment formulated by the prosecution against six people – Luigi Nerini, owner of the company that managed the Mottarone cableway, Enrico Perocchio, the director of operations, Gabriele Tadini, the head of service, and the top management of Leitner – and of two companies – Ferrovie del Mottarone and the Vipiteno group – citing the Cartabia law, had asked to modify the chargeseliminating the aggravating circumstance relating to the violation of accident regulations and excluding references to workplace safety. An invitation that the prosecutor Olimpia Bossi and the public prosecutor Laura Carrera have decided not to accept, believing, moreover, that the Cartabia law itself does not confer to the judge of the preliminary hearing “uncontested dominion” regarding the legal qualification of the facts, which in this case would have distorted the accusatory system constructed at the end of two years of investigation. The preliminary hearing judge, however, can proceed ex officio to revoke her order, otherwise, barring other twists, she should return the documents to the public prosecutors who should again propose a request for referral to trial. “Regardless of the determinations of the public prosecutor, the preliminary hearing judge’s order from the last hearing identifies a series of elements that cannot be ignored” commented the lawyer Federico Cecconi, of the defense team of Leitner. Elements that could have led to at least acquitting the two companies and reducing the charges against the individuals. For the lawyers Pasquale Pantano and Luca Della Casa, defenders of Nerini “the prosecution has forced the rule that provides that the public prosecutor complies with the judge’s order. In this case, however, he has not complied in any way and has limited himself to asking for the return of the documents” “This appears – the two lawyers continue – to be a mechanism that puts the choice of the natural judge back in the hands of the public prosecutor, who according to the Constitution can only be identified by law. In the meantime – conclude Pantano and Della Casa – the statute of limitations advances and this time, let no one say, that the responsibility lies with the lawyers”.
The preliminary hearing judge does not have “uncontested dominion” over the “legal qualification of the facts (…) that would lead to a reduction of the charges” and, according to the law, does not have such powers “as to lead to situations in which the public prosecutor, in order to avoid the return of the documents and the regression of the proceedings, finds himself, in fact, forced to distort the accusatory system”. These are in summary some of the passages of the brief, filed today with the parties, with which the Verbania prosecutor’s office did not accept the request of the preliminary hearing judge Rosa Maria Fornelli to modify the charges against the defendants for the Mottarone tragedy in which 14 people died. The provisions introduced by the Cartabia law, the same one invoked by the judge to request the modification of the indictment, so that “it is respectful of the constitutional principles of reasonable duration of the trial, of mandatory criminal action and of impartiality and third-party status of the judge”, observe the prosecutor Olimpia Bossi and the prosecutor Laura Carrera, “cannot be given an interpretation that” leads to “situations in which the public prosecutor, in order to avoid the return of the documents and the regression of the proceedings, finds himself, in fact, forced to distort the accusatory system, reducing the disputes”. Furthermore, the brief reports, it cannot be considered that “the legislator wanted to attribute to the judge of the preliminary/pre-trial hearing, the exclusive and unchallenged dominion in order to the legal qualification of the facts brought to his attention, which also leads to a reduction of the disputes”. What the Prosecutor’s Office essentially argues is that by law the GUP cannot impose, in this case, a “reduction of the dispute, with effects also on the jurisdiction of the trial judge, from collegiate to monocratic”. He can also evaluate and decide on the merits with a sentence that can eventually be appealed. Otherwise, the principles of “obligatory criminal action and its irrevocability” would also be violated.
(Ansa photo)
2024-09-16 06:07:22