Mafia, the vice president of Sicily Luca Sammartino investigated in the Catania investigation

The vice-president of the Sicilian Region Luca Sammartino is being investigated for aggravated corruption as part of the investigation Pandora from the prosecutor’s office of Catania. For Sammartino it was the start suspension from public office for one year, “with a ban on all related activities”. The police blitz began this morning: together with Sammartino, the leading face of Sicilian regional politics, the mayor of Tremestieri Etneo (Catania) Santi Randoended up in prison on charges of political-mafia exchange vote and aggravated corruption.

The investigation continued between 2018 and 2021 and served to highlight the alleged illicit agreements between some of the Tremestieri administrators and people believed to be close to the Santapaola-Ercolano familythe articulation of Cosa Nostra in the Etna capital. Among the facts reported by the investigators, there are several that concern the electoral consultations: not only those for the election of Santi Rando as first citizen of Tremestieri Etneo in 2015 and then in 2021, but also the European elections of 2019. When Luca Sammartino, then a regional deputy, was still active in the ranks of the Democratic party (today he is the main exponent of the League in Sicily) and supported the candidacy of the former democrat Caterina Chinnici (she, however, is now in Forza Italia, not involved in the investigation).

Mister 32 thousand preferences

There are two charges concerning Sammartino and they both cover a period of time between 2018 and 2020. At the time, the current vice-president of the Region was the most promising of the regional deputies: elected in 2017 with the Democratic Party, he had been the most voted in his session, he had become “Mister 32 thousand preferences“. An extraordinary result, even considering his age: born in 1985, not even forty years. In 2019, before the last European elections, you had chosen the horse to bet on: Caterina Chinnici, daughter of the judge killed by the mafia Rocco, democratic candidate in Sicily.

One less pharmacy

It is in this context that, according to the prosecution, he attempted by any means to obtain votes for Chinnici. The protagonists of this story, in addition to Sammartino, are the mayor of Tremestieri Etneo Santi Rando, the municipal councilor Pietro Alfio Cosentinothe mayor’s “free” consultant Giuseppe Monaco and, finally, the city councilor Mario Ronsisvallethe latter under house arrest for incitement to corruption. The theme is simple and concerns healthcare. Specifically: pharmacies. Mario Ronsisvalle he is the owner of one of those in the Tremestieri area. But we need to reduce the number of possible ones from seven to six. A favor to Ronsisvalle in exchange for electoral supporthis and his political group, first for Sammartino and then for Rando, who was heading towards re-nomination.

For the magistrates, Rando would have maintained, also through Luca Sammartino, contacts both with theregional health department both with theProvincial health company of Catania, “with whom he agreed on the actions to be carried out – we read in the indictment – thus directing the conduct to be followed by the technical/administrative bodies of the Municipality and contacted the municipal councilors “close” to him to ensure a favorable vote for the resolution concerning the reduction of pharmacies”. A purpose that would also be carried forward through the political initiatives of councilor Cosentino and the monitoring of consultant Monaco.

Sammartino, for his part, was at the time president of the Health commission at the Ars. He would then exercise “pressures” both on the regional department and on the Asp Etnea, through the managers, “in order to obtain a bureaucratic process favorable to the reduction of the pharmacies present in Tremestieri”. Ronsisvalle would have promised “his support for the election of the candidate to the European Parliament Chinnici” and would then confirm his “support for Mayor Rando in the local elections”.

The policeman paid for the “clean-ups”

The other accusation against the most voted Northern League member in Sicily, however, cit also involves a policeman. L’pinned Antonio Battiato he would have taken care, for a fee, not only of clearing Sammartino’s offices from the bugs placed by the investigators. But he would also have made himself available, “abusing his role within the Prosecutor’s Office, to find information, even confidential and covered by investigative secrecy, regarding criminal proceedings against Sammartino”. The soldier, directly or through his unidentified colleagues, attempted unauthorized access to the computer system to acquire information “in violation of the secrecy of the investigation“.