Here is the TAR ruling that describes the Straface System: Calenda is being a puritan with Cuffaro, and is Straface okay?
The controversy of Carlo Calenda, leader of Action, against the alliance between his former friend Renzi and Totò Cuffaro, leader of the new DC, convicted of aiding and abetting, is now making national headlines on a daily basis. We believe that Calenda is right in this case, but we do not understand how Azione can support Pasqualina Straface with its own list as a candidate for mayor of Corigliano-Rossano, together with characters such as Rapani alias Rapina and General Graziano. Il Fatto Quotidiano has already widely revealed, with national visibility, one of the cruxes of the problem.
And let’s get to the formal stuff… The mayor of Corigliano-Rossano has managed numerous confiscated assets in recent years. If he wins (fortunately unlikely hypothesis), Straface should manage over 8 million in assets confiscated from the ‘ndrangheta, i.e. from its own family, or from the brothers both convicted of mafia-style criminal association and who were under the 41 bis regime.
The latest confirmed confiscation in chronological order is that of Snoopy, beach of the Straface family, in which recently the current regional councilor of Forza Italia (wanted by Occhiuto both for the Region and as a candidate for mayor in Corigliano-Rossano) celebrated a birthday, shortly before the police discovered that the “separation” between the brother and sister-in-law was only fictitious and artfully constructed to prevent the State from confiscating other assets.
Therefore, the bathing establishment was also definitively confiscated two years ago. But if this has been blurted out in the national press, there are much more important issues that everyone seems to forget, but not those who have even a little historical memory. First of all, Straface, as mayor, governed for a few months which were enough for him to be dissolved for the mafia, but also to be condemned by the Court of Auditors to an enormous compensation (tens of thousands of euros) towards a well-known local company, due to his wicked and unscrupulous conduct.
That company is still waiting and does not resort to legal instruments, such as foreclosures and other things, only out of fear: this is the climate that reigns around Straface. But what should interest the good Calenda is that Straface’s acquittal is a real joke. First of all because a part of the crimes is simply prescribed, but above all because citizens must know that the Prosecutor of the famous Santa Tecla investigation, which in the meantime had changed due to earthquakes within the judiciary, he had requested 7 years of imprisonment against Straface for aiding and abetting organized crime.
The judge deemed the evidence insufficient, but the incredible thing – a more unique than rare case – is that the public prosecution, i.e. the state, after asking for 7 years for a very serious crime, did not appeal. We all know that this is a truly incredible circumstance. Fortunately, and the whole Action party should know this, there are final sentences, in all three levels of judgement, which represent real judicial boulders and which fully describe what the Straface System was in the municipality of Corigliano Calabrian. There is no need for comments, just read the TAR ruling which confirmed the dissolution of the Municipality of Corigliano Calabro due to mafia infiltration, a ruling later confirmed in full by the Council of State in 2015.
Reviewing this sentence we read: “… It should be noted that the acquired findings have documented that, during the electoral campaign, the former mayor had relationships with a person suspected of being close to organized crime and with others, linked by kinship with the head of the local gang: who, as can be seen from the documents, offered their support to the then candidate Pasqualina Straface (as can be found in GICO information no. 245342 of 29 July 2010). In this context, no less importance must be attached to the support which, during the electoral campaign, the former mayor enjoyed from one of these subjects, for whom the information acquired has highlighted, over the years, a path criminal of increasingly intense insertion and involvement in the criminal affairs of the Corigliano association (as well as the presence of numerous restrictive and preventive measures)”.
The sentence regarding the relationships and electoral support of the Corigliano mafia gang is clear, but it also establishes something else: “… During the access, the Commission instead verified how in many cases the council had implemented management activities that were absolutely not within its competence, such as the assignment of professional tasks, or even the contingent and urgent ordinances with which the former mayor entrusted work to specifically identified companies. The assignment of these tasks was found to be tainted by evident irregularities, emerging from the Commission’s report and from the documentation acquired. In particular, with Council resolution no. 150 of 23 December 2009, the “Coordination Program of Historic Center Activities” was approved and the “Project Unit” was established, whose members were then appointed by the mayor with decree no. 59 of 29 December 2009.”.
Among the recipients of these tasks there was also a member of the current Straface Regional Councilor structurewho gossips daily on blogs against the current mayor, brother of a candidate on the current lists and of a well-known former politician from Corigliano, involved in numerous investigations for fraud against the state who had to flee to Brazil.
Precisely in relation to the positions, the TAR ruling continues as follows. “… As regards the appointments of the members of the aforementioned body, the acquired findings have made it possible to ascertain that one of the members was the brother of one of the councilors of the Straface council and of a municipal and provincial councilor, as well as the brother-in-law of another former municipal councilor, who was also burdened by a significant criminal record; while another member was the sister of the husband of one of Pasqualina Straface’s sisters, himself involved in the Santa Tecla investigation, in his capacity as administrator of one of the companies attributable to the brothers Franco and Mario Straface. From what has been reported above emerge – differently from what the appellant has put forward – univocal and conclusive traits of orientation of the choices of the political-administrative summit in favor of people linked by family ties and/or affinity to subjects seriously suspected of gravitating into criminal environments ”.
It’s clearer than that you die… But it’s not over. The ruling then proceeds on contracts and on the so-called high urgency procedures, which are used only in extraordinary cases. Here’s what the ruling states. “… As correctly observed in the Report of the Territorial Government Office dated 4 August 2011, “no competence could therefore be recognized to the mayor, who made an arbitrary use to say the least of the contingent and urgent ordinances, which as an extra ordinam instrument, have become, in the reality of Corigliano Calabro, almost “normal” measures, thus evading not only the rules regarding public evidence or work in the economy, but also those already provided for by the law for emergency cases…”.
“…The former mayor, moreover, appears to have made intensive use of the emergency power in question (due to which, the works entrusted with these procedures amounted to a total of €2,213,705.84), also exercised : for the construction of a section of sewerage network for the pruning of n. 22 tall poplar trees for the commissioning of part of the public lighting system equal to 13 lighting fixtures for the holding of the Mediterranean Market – for the elimination of serious dangers that threatened the safety of citizens due to the proliferation of mice, rats, mosquitoes. It should be further noted that the Commission acquired all the minutes relating to the various interventions, finding significant irregularities; while, among the companies entrusted with extremely urgent interventions, the one most used by the Municipality was a company whose sole director was, according to the GICO report, “a trusted person of the Straface brothers…”.
Finished? No. “… Contrary to what was claimed by the appellants, the Commission then found that the Municipality of Corigliano Calabro practically ignored the use of the usual anti-mafia precautions, even where they were required, as confirmed by the checks carried out at the Prefecture of Cosenza, from which it emerged that from 1 July 2009 to 31 December 2010, no request for anti-mafia information or communication was ever received…”.
There is nothing ambiguous or to explain. These are not hypotheses, but a definitive sentence of the Italian state which certifies the “quality” of an administration, from every point of view: political, electoral, administrative, institutional. How is it possible to nominate someone with such a CV in 2024? Shame on Occhiuto and shame on all those who support this wicked coalition which insults the memory and intelligence of the city: there are no extenuating circumstances of any kind.
