Sicily, arrests for vote swapping: the vice president of the Region resigns

Among those arrested was the mayor of Tremestieri Etneo Santi Rando. The politician Mario Ronsisvalle is also under house arrest

April 18, 2024

In the mafia political system everyone who mattered was there. As in Leonardo Sciascia’s novels, at the table where pacts with the clans were established sat the mayor, the pharmacist, the unfaithful retired carabiniere who looked for the prosecutor’s bugs in the cars and offices of notables and in the political secretariats, and in the in use at the apartments on one side of the Cosa Nostra dei clan Santapaola. To put an end to the malfeasance that had been going on since 2015, the investigation conducted by the Carabinieri of the Investigative Unit of the Provincial Command of Catania which also involved the vice president of the Sicily Region, Luca Sammartino, for which the investigating judge ordered his suspension from public office for one year. The vice president, yes resigned by the Sicilian Regional Council.

Among those arrested was mayor of Tremestieri Etneo Santi Rando, The politician Mario Ronsisvalle is also under house arrest. The investigations were conducted by the Carabinieri investigative unit of the Catania provincial command between 2018 and 2011 and coordinated by the anti-mafia district prosecutor’s office. Some members of the police force who allegedly supported some suspects were also handcuffed. The main accusation, highlighted in the over 700 pages of precautionary custody order signed by the investigating judge of the Catania court, is that of the alleged existence of a mafia political agreement between some administrators of the Municipality of Tremestieri Etneo and members of the clan Of Cosa Nostra of Santapaola-Ercolano for the 2015 municipal elections when Santi Rando was elected mayor. Mafia political electoral exchange and aggravated corruptionthe accusation for the former mayor of the center of Etna.

The repentant Salvatore Bonanno in a deposition before the Anti-Mafia magistrates in the investigations into the Pandora operation he revealed: “The current mayor of Tremestieri Etneo named Santi Rando, a former policeman, was elected, in the period in which I was detained, with the support by Ciccio Santapaola and Vito Romeo who found the votes in his favor. One of the councilors is called Nino and is Vito Romeo’s brother-in-law who lives, like Vito himself, in Tremestieri”. Statements reinforced by justice collaborator, Silvio Corra, that he talked about secret meetings between politicians and mafiosi: “In 2015/2016 I remember that Santapaola Francesco and Romeo Vito often met at Romeo’s home with the Tremestieri councilor and with the mayor himself. I accompanied Santapaola to Romeo’s house but then I didn’t participate in the meetings with the political subjects who I still saw coming. On one occasion I remember that they arrived with a dark blue Lancia Libra. It was Romeo Vito who told me that they were aldermen and the mayor. Three or four politicians attended these meetings, I always saw one.”