The legacy of the National Alliance sold out in the fall of a leader. Gianfranco Fini’s judicial destiny was fulfilled yesterday, with a first instance sentence of two years and eight months. The former president of the Chamber was found guilty of moral complicity in money laundering. His only fault, paid dearly with his exile from the political scene, was having authorized the sale of the house at 14 Boulevard Princess Charlotte, in Montecarlo, a magnificent loft bequeathed to the party in via della Scrofa by Countess Anna Maria Colleoni . He himself spoke about that suffering in an interview with Tg1: «I paid a heavy price on a human level, also for family involvement. At a political level there is bitterness because someone, even on the right, took the opportunity to say “Enough with Fini”.
Leaving the courtroom where the fourth criminal section of the Court of Rome had read the sentence, the former AN leader explained: «I was not held responsible for money laundering, evidently the only thing that prevented me from being acquitted was the authorization the sale of the apartment which is completely clear was authorized by me.” With him in the dock, but guilty of money laundering, were also his partner Elisabetta Tulliani, sentenced to 5 years, his brother-in-law Giancarlo, to 6, and the Tullianis’ father, Sergio, who was sentenced to 5 years.
Read also: Casa di Montecarlo: Fini sentenced to 2 years and 8 months, higher sentences for Tulliani
It is for them that Fini would have been involved in that system of money laundering and capital gains, implemented, according to the investigators, with the sale of the Monte Carlo house by An to the Antilles Printemps Ltd company, behind which the brother-in-law of the leader of the National Alliance and the capitals of Francesco Corallo, the king of slot machines who emerged from the affair on March 1st, thanks to the statute of limitations. «I did not authorize the sale of the house in Monte Carlo to a company attributable to Giancarlo Tulliani. When I gave the OK I didn’t know who the buyer was”, declared Fini, for whom the prosecution had requested an eight-year sentence.
Assisted by lawyers Michele Sarno and Francesco Caroleo Grimaldi, he announced that he will appeal against the sentence, the reasons for which will be released within 90 days. That the former president of the Chamber was completely “unaware” of his brother-in-law’s business and of the origin of the money used for the purchase, was confessed by his partner Elisabetta, who admitted to having hidden from the former president “the desire to my brother Giancarlo to buy the house in Monte Carlo, the subsequent sale and the fact of having accepted the co-ownership proposed to me by my brother as repayment of a loan I had given him years before. I was certain that the money for the purchase belonged to my brother.”
Instead, according to prosecutors, that money belonged to Corallo, who at the time had a debt of 85 million euros to the tax authorities. The purchase would have served to recycle part of the capital. On the other hand, the sale of the loft had been a real deal. Sold by AN in 2008 for just over 300 thousand euros and sold in 2015 for one million 250 thousand.
