The governor of Puglia was heard in the context of the investigations into alleged infiltrations in the regional territory and the investigation that led to the Commission for access to the Municipality of Bari. “The Region has nothing to do with the investigations underway in the city. Not even the municipal council is under investigation. Don’t compare me with other very painful events that are happening in other areas of Italy, I ask you for protection.” On the Pisicchio affair: “No non-transparent conduct”
Your browser does not support HTML5
“The meeting” with the sister of the boss Capriati and other women of Bari Vecchia “that I mentioned from the stage had the sole purpose of making it clear that the atmosphere” in Bari “had changed, that they had to behave well, never to ask protection as some instrumentally claims”. This was said by the president of the Puglia Region, Michele Emiliano, who today was heard in front of the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission as part of the in-depth investigation into the investigations into alleged infiltrations in the regional territory and the investigation which led to the Commission for access to the Municipality of Bari. The hearing follows the controversy over the sentence pronounced by Emiliano during a demonstration on his alleged meeting, together with the then councilor Antonio Decaro, with the sister of the boss Antonio Capriati after alleged threats made to the current mayor of Bari by affiliated with the clan. “The event was an event like all the others to impose respect for the rules even on those who had not understood the political and social meaning of the administration that I led – said Emiliano – It is evident that I also used my personal history” of anti-mafia magistrate.
“I ran for mayor to act as a social anti-mafia”
“I went to the sister of boss Capriati to reiterate with determination and serenity that they no longer made the rules in St. Peter’s Square but we made them – the governor of Puglia continued – The release of the confiscated properties was also the subject of this conversation “. Then he recalled his role as a magistrate in the Dolmen trial in which Antonio Capriati was “sentenced to life imprisonment” and was “attributed to the murder of Vincenzo Tesse”. “One of the reasons – he added – that pushed me to run for mayor in Bari in 2004 was the observation that, although we as magistrates had carried out as Anti-Mafia one of the most timely reclamation works in all of Italian history up to then, I had realized that the criminal action had to be converted into social anti-mafia”. In 2007, declared the governor, “when I became mayor I established an agency for the non-repressive fight against the mafia. Since 2007 we have established the obligation of the municipality to be a civil party in trials against the mafia. In 20 years we have allocated to Municipality 140 properties confiscated from the mafia. One of the houses confiscated from the Capriati, in Piazza San Pietro in Bari Vecchia, there is an association now”.
read also
Decaro case, Emiliano: “I have dedicated my life to anti-mafia”
“Maybe Decaro absent from meeting with sister boss”
“I don’t rule out having given wrong details” during my speech on stage and “if the mayor of Bari Antonio Decaro says he wasn’t present” at the meeting with the sister of the Bari Vecchia boss “he’s probably right”, he said. later called Emiliano. “But – he added – I remember a similar episode that happened in Cathedral Square, Antonio Decaro told me ‘see what they did’, with reference to the episode” of the threats made to him. I confronted these guys and said ‘this engineer is my councilor so don’t touch him, let him work’. The same thing I said to everyone.” And he added: “We didn’t go to the police because Antonio Decaro’s story didn’t contain any news of a crime.” And again: “Mrs. Capriati in an interview on Tg1 said that Decaro is not never went to her and indeed that Decaro always had an attitude of strong detachment towards her”.
read also
Bari, photo of Decaro with boss sister Capriati appears: it’s from a year ago
“There is no investigation into the Puglia region”
“No investigation is underway on the Puglia Region. I ask you for protection, that is, to tell all of Italy, please, that the president of the Puglia Region is not the subject of any investigation, of any kind, in any of the investigations”, Emiliano said at the hearing. “There is a confusion – he added – so one has the impression that he has to answer for something. I ask you to reiterate it, the Puglia Region has nothing to do with the investigations underway in Bari. Not even the municipal council of Bari is the subject of an investigation, it is exempt from any investigation. Don’t compare me with other very painful events that are happening in other areas of Italy.”
“I ask you for protection”
“Donzelli says that he should have asked me to resign. I understand that I cannot ask you for protection, even if this once happened, but I only have the Anti-Mafia commission to defend me. If someone accuses me, saying that I have done things from the point of ethical view and you ascertain that it did not happen, I ask you for protection with all the confidence in the world”, Emiliano said at the hearing, adding that “after all this is also the function of the commission”, if someone is “persecuted without reason for facts which are not relevant and which you have established as irrelevant”.
read also
Puglia, Health Councilor resigns. Emiliano vara mini reshuffle
Emiliano-Colosimo clash over messages to Pisicchio
During the hearing there was then a polemical exchange between Emiliano and the president of the commission, Chiara Colosimo. It happened when Colosimo asked the president of Puglia to account for the alleged messages she sent to former councilor Alfonso Pisicchio inviting him to resign because an investigation into him had accelerated. A few hours after the alleged WhatsApp messages, Pisicchio was arrested by the Financial Police. Colosimo asked if these messages were actually sent and from whom she would have received information about the investigation and why she did not report the leak. Emiliano responded by first reading a press release sent shortly after Pisicchio’s arrest, then replied by claiming that the “question is incongruous with the subject of the hearing”. “I have not carried out any non-transparent conduct – he specified – I am available to the Prosecutor’s Office should further investigation be necessary. I understand from reading the press that the messages would have been acquired by the Prosecutor’s Office, therefore the only person who can give answers is the prosecutor of the Republic that you listened to”. And again: “In the moment in which, hypothetically, I had known about the temporal coincidence” of his arrest “I would not have revoked the position” as Arts commissioner. “The demonstration that I knew nothing” about Pisicchio’s imminent arrest “is precisely the fact that I made the revocation, but this is just an evaluation.”
read also
Bari, Pisicchio: “Emiliano asked me to resign for investigations”
Paita to Emiliano: “Unwelcome attitude on audition date”
There was also tension with the Italia Viva deputy Raffaella Paita, who told Emiliano: “Personally, but I would say that I can interpret a broad feeling in the commission, we did not appreciate your discretionary decision to use the times that seemed most right to you to do this hearing. I didn’t like your attitude. Even more so today you come to the hearing and tell us what we should do with your hearing, we will decide what to do or not do with your reasoning in this hearing but let you come and tell us what we should say. beyond megalomania”. “It is standard practice to agree the dates with those being audited – replied the governor of Puglia – In all sincerity I did not understand the reason why the request among the secretariats was so categorical that I come on a date prior to the debate on trust”. Vice-president of the Anti-Mafia commission, Federico Cafiero De Raho, also spoke on the topic: “I did not consider it a lack of respect to have requested the postponement of the hearing due to a series of commitments, including the motion of no confidence in the Regional Council. Emiliano’s intervention had particularly significant contents”.
