“Your article contained disparaging and delegitimizing expressions towards the office. This is why I invited the CSM to reflect.” Interviewed by the newspaper, the prosecutor of Florence, Filippo Spieziaconfirms the accusations made to our newspaper which pushed him to ask the CSM to open a case to protect the prosecutor’s office.
Spiezia is referring to an article published in the Foglio last April 13, which did nothing but highlight the changes that are affecting the Florence prosecutor’s office, which has been at the center of media-judicial news in recent years. After the change at the helm of the office, two out of three deputy prosecutors left: Luca Tescaroli, known for his surreal investigation into Berlusconi and Dell’Utriaccused of being the external instigators of the mafia bombings of 1993-1994, and Gabriele Mazzotta, exponent of the left-wing Area current, believed to be close to the most activist old guard of the prosecutor’s office. Both were promoted by the CSM: the first as prosecutor of Prato, the second as general advocate of the Supreme Court. The third addition, Luca Turco, will retire at the end of the year. We ironically defined the latter as the “magistrate of the Renzi family”, in the sense that the judicial fury which in recent years has affected Matteo Renzi and then spread to his entire family, acquaintances and friends must be attributed to him. An activity full of failures, archiving, resounding rejections by the Supreme Court and even the Constitutional Court.
Spiezia read our article and concluded that it was “delegitimizing and denigrating”, asking the CSM to open a case to protect the office. A tool usually used to respond to criticism coming from politicians, certainly not from newspapers.
We reached the Florence prosecutor by telephone, who – at our insistence – made it clear which parts he didn’t like. “The passage about the public prosecutor of the family of a suspect (Turco as prosecutor of the Renzi family, ed.) has no basis, because the attribution of criminal proceedings takes place on the basis of predefined and pre-established criteria. This, moreover, concerns a period prior to my arrival in Florence”. The criteria may be predefined, but the fact remains that over the years, a prosecutor has centralized all the investigations concerning the former prime minister Matteo Renzi, his father, his mother, his sister, his brother-in-law, his colleagues, his friends and his acquaintanceshowever always running into acquittals or rejections by the Supreme Court.
“This idea of the normalizer then passes through the article, which does not belong to my professional history – adds Spiezia -. This morning’s news is that all the appeals that were presented against my appointment have been rejected, therefore the perfect legitimacy of the CSM’s choice is confirmed”. Our article, however, never questioned the legitimacy of Spiezia’s appointment, nor did he present the latter as a “normalizer”. It was simply underlined that his name, who has always been close to the independent judiciary, was preferred to that of an exponent of the left-wing currents, Ettore Squillace Greco.
Prosecutor, don’t you think that what delegitimizes the prosecutor’s office is not our article, but the numerous decisions with which the Court of Cassation and even the Constitutional Court have rejected the work of the magistrates of your office? “You refer to decisions of the Supreme Court on seizure measures, which I agree with, but which they concern incidental moments of proceedings still in progress – Spiezia replies –. These are not complete and final assessments. When you give partial information you run the risk of providing the wrong image of the office. The reality is not like that.” Tell us what the reality is. “Having requested the opening of a protection procedure, I would wait for the CSM’s evaluation,” says Spiezia. As if the numerous – and very severe – sentences of the Cassation and the Constitutional Court, although they concern seizures carried out by the Florentine prosecutors during the investigation phase, cannot be sources of criticism towards the work of the prosecutor’s office.
Spiezia has no doubts: “The Florence prosecutor’s office is an office that is working very well, it is involved in delicate proceedings and we focus a lot on the quality of our work. For this reason, in my opinion, what was written in the article is delegitimizing.” In short, criticism is prohibited.
Tags: Interview prosecutor Florence accuses Foglio denigrated office
