The case against Commander Zacheus closed

«No elements appear to emerge that can adequately identify actions aimed at neglecting and/or neglecting one’s managerial responsibilities». Was archived definitely the disciplinary proceedings towards the commander from the Local police of the Municipality of Lecce, Donato Zacheo, who on March 29 – through the lawyer Salvatore Serafino – had presented his defense brief after the findings made by the general secretary of Palazzo Carafa. To Commander Zacheo, who is also president of As.com. (Association of Local Police Commanders and Officers of the province of Lecce) and director of the Local Police Training School of Lecce, was accused of having «tolerated the persistent and systematic illicit activity of particular gravity» carried out by some police officers. With reference to the investigation by the Guardia di Finanza which uncovered last February, within the local Police Command, a system based on canceled fines (500 were counted) in exchange for favours.

Commander Zacheo – recipient of dozens of certificates of esteem from colleagues – thus ended up under the scrutiny of the Disciplinary Procedures Office of the Municipality of Lecce last March following the maxi investigation which saw 46 people involved in an alleged corruption ring in the local police sector of Lecce due to alleged attitudes of “tolerance of irregularities in service, acts of indiscipline, incorrect behavior or particularly serious abuses of the personnel against whom management powers are exercised”.

The archiving provision

In the long-reasoned dismissal order, the Disciplinary Procedures Office writes «Zacheo acted by examining the reports received, evaluating the available evidence and also activating, for some cases, a constant dialogue with the investigating authorities, on the basis of what occurred in his opinion. knowledge. In particular, by exercising his managerial power/duty, he oversaw the correct carrying out of the activities of the staff employed by him, taking action: in cases accompanied by sufficient evidentiary support, he activated disciplinary proceedings according to the evaluation of the documentation at his disposal; in other cases not supported by adequate evidence, he decided not to proceed disciplinaryly, but to report to the Guardia di Finanza soldiers and the Public Prosecutor in charge of the investigations. Consequently, from the confirmation of his actions, on the basis of the reports currently in file, no elements appear to emerge that can adequately identify actions aimed at neglecting and/or omitting his managerial responsibilities”.
Furthermore, in the dismissal order it is underlined how the commander, in his defense statement, has «highlighted the need to respect investigative secrecy and the desire to honor the obligation of secrecy and not carry out any acts potentially polluting the conduct of the complex and detailed investigations then in several strands”. Not only that: Zacheo, “placed himself at the disposal of the judicial authorities, informed both the soldiers of the Financial Police and the public prosecutor of every fact and situation useful for the purposes of the investigations”.

The defense of Commander Zacheo managed to demonstrate “the manifest non-existence of the facts alleged against him” as well as the fact that he always acted “in full compliance with the law”. «Moreover – says the lawyer Serafino – it would have been truly paradoxical, in a context of preliminary investigations by the Prosecutor’s Office, to give impetus to one or more disciplinary charges without adequate evidentiary evidence from the outset, with the double consequence of arriving, for on the one hand, to their dismissal due to the absence of elements and, on the other, to irremediably polluting the investigative activity due to the evident identity of the facts”.

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