Second, important step for the transfer of Chico Forti to Italy. The Court of Appeal of Trento has filed the sentence that implements the American ruling issued on 15 June 2000 which sentenced the 65 year old former Trentino entrepreneur to life imprisonment for the murder which occurred on 15 February 1998 of Dale Pike, son of an entrepreneur with whom Chico was in negotiations for the sale of a hotel in Ibiza. But Enrico Forti prisoner number 199115 of maximum security prison of Florida City has always professed himself innocent and the victim of a conspiracy. Even though he has already served 24 years.
The bureaucratic steps
“Has been confirmed the sentence to life imprisonment, implementing the American sentence”, explains the lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova who together with Luigi Ciancaglini of the Rome Bar, the same ones who followed Amanda Knox. Now everything has to go back to the States. The next step involves sending the sentence of the Trento court in Washington to proceed with the transfer of the prisoner, as provided for by the Strasbourg Convention.
First, however, the file will pass into the hands of the Italian Ministry of Justice for transcription, control and translation of the sentence, then it will be sent to the judicial offices of the United States. At that point, Forti’s prison will be changed from the state one in Miami where he is currently located to the federal one. Then, the actual transfer will begin. With estimated times of a few weeks.
“I know he’s happy”
«The procedure is progressing and this is a very positive fact – underlines the lawyer Dalla Vedova – on the exact timing it’s difficult to expose yourself, there are many offices and ministries involved, but the ruling from the Court of Appeal of Trento was already quick, we are confident”. And speaking of Chico: «He has been notified by his family, I haven’t spoken to him yet but I know he is happy». After a quarter of a century of battles and unsuccessful requests for a review of the trial, the request for transfer to Italy to finish serving the sentence at home, as granted by the Strasbourg Convention, is proceeding after several interruptions for bureaucratic reasons. Until March 2nd, the day of the turning point.
Meloni’s announcement
It is Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni who enthusiastically announces the resolution of the situation live on TV from Washington: the signature for the transfer authorization. Four years after it was accepted with reservations by the governor of Florida Ron DeSantis and announced by the former foreign minister Luigi Di Maio in December 2020, which however led to nothing, this time the acronym is there. From March, the diplomacy of the two states and the two governments, Italian and American, worked hard to arrive at a change of direction and a quick solution. After Meloni’s announcement, the Trento court accepted Forti’s file and after the hearing on 17 April for the recognition of the sentence, the life sentence was confirmed. Now we are awaiting news from the USA.
