As expected, the governor Giovanni Toti did not respond to investigating judge Paola Faggioni in the warrant interrogation. The president of the Liguria Region had arrived around 1.30pm aboard two dark cars, and was made to pass from the car park below the Palace of Justice. Inside, the left corridor which some classrooms overlook has been cordoned off and signs have been put up saying “from 1pm no access due to works”.
The interrogation, which actually lasted about half an hour, ended shortly after 2.30pm. As announced, Toti made use of the right not to respond.
«Next week we will ask to be interviewed next week. At the moment we are reading all the papers”, said the lawyer Stefano Savi after the interrogation of Giovanni Toti. “Afterwards,” he concluded, “we will ask for the house arrest to be revoked.”
Meanwhile, he was questioned in the Prosecutor’s Office Spezia Saverio Cecchi, president (self-suspended) of Confindustria Nauticainvestigated for corruption as part of the investigation into Matteo Cozzani, former mayor of Portovenere and head of cabinet of governor Toti.
Cecchi and the commercial director of Nautical Show, Alessandro Campagna, they were both hit with a precautionary interdictory measure which prohibits them from carrying out their respective activities.
The La Spezia magistrates, coordinated by the prosecutor Antonio Patrono, are investigating the strong increase in public funds available to the Boat Show starting from the 2022 edition. In previous years, in fact, the organizing company, of which Cecchi is the legal representative, had obtained the sum of 400 thousand euros, totally paid by the Region.
A few months before the elections, however, the council approved a resolution that drew on European funding to bring the total sum to 730 thousand euros. Furthermore, in those days, a regional law had been approved (a ‘little law’, Cozzani says in the wiretaps, taking credit for it, ed) which recognized the “strategic nature” of the event, expanding the allocation thanks to ERDF funds. The ‘law’ according to the investigators would have favored the brother of Matteo Cozzani, an entrepreneur in the packaging sector, who had managed to supply the Boat Show with tetrapacks of water for an amount of 10 thousand euros.
