BARI – The arrest of the Ligurian governor Giovanni Toti shifts the spotlight of judicial poisons affecting politics to Genoa. With the center-right defending the journalist, a member of Noi Moderates, attempting parallels with the case of Emiliano. And focusing on the (too) closeness to the elections: Toti’s arrest occurred exactly one month before the European and local elections in June.
The Genoa Prosecutor’s Office made the arrest request on 27 December 2023. The investigating judge filed it on Monday 6th, and the measures were carried out the following day. The disputed facts range from September 2020 to April 2023: the investigating judge’s office took four months to file the order, which was requested 10 months after the last disputed episode. These are times that can be considered very rapid for the averages of Italian justice, but which do not convince the center-right, starting with Minister Nordio. Already on Monday the minister had expressed doubts «not about the moment in which the precautionary measure is triggered with respect to the imminence of the elections» but about «a measure [cautelare] compared to the time in which the crime was committed and the investigation began”. Yesterday government officials relaunched along the same line. «The request for arrest – said Licia Ronzulli (Fi) – is dated 27 December and we know that the precautionary measures are linked to the possibility of repeating the crime or hiding the evidence. So, one of two things: either these risks were also there on December 27th, and then I wonder why the judge didn’t sign the arrest immediately, or they aren’t there now. Why did they let four months pass? Minister Francesco Lollobrigida spoke from Fratelli d’Italia: “We have seen that it is an investigation which I now believe dates back four years, it began four years ago.” “There was this trend from Bari to Turin to Genoa that we need to reflect on,” said the former president of the Chamber and former magistrate Luciano Violante. «The timeline is an interesting sequence. I think I would be careful enough to understand how things are. Also because these are investigations that began in 2021 and concluded in 2024.”
In Puglia the timing of the arrests which sparked talk of the “Bari case” was much longer. The most recent investigation led to the arrest of the former regional councilor Alfonso Pisicchio and his brother Enzo. The request for precautionary measures was presented by the Bari Prosecutor’s Office on 16 January 2023 (and integrated on 7 February 2024) for facts starting from 2017 and ending in December 2020. The precautionary custody order was filed after approximately 14 months, on 8 April 2024, and carried out on the evening of the 10th. That is, the same day on which the governor Michele Emiliano revoked Pisicchio from the position of commissioner of the Arti agency after sending him a message in which he warned him that the investigation into he had “regained strength”.
The file for electoral corruption in the municipal elections held between 2020 and 2021 in the Bari area, which led to the former leader of the South in the centre, Sandrino Cataldo, being placed under house arrest, saw the filing of the request for precautionary custody on 25 July 2023: it concerns between the other the elections of Triggiano (October 2021) and Grumo Appula (May 2020). The order was filed by the investigating judge on March 25, 2024 (eight months after the request) and was executed on April 4.
The path of the Internal Code investigation into the relationship between organized crime and politics is even more troubled: it is the DDA investigation that led to the arrest (prison) of the former regional councilor Giacomo Olivieri and his wife Mari Lorusso (under house arrest), as well that of the administration of the municipal transport company Amtab and the appointment of a prefectural commission to ascertain any clan infiltrations in the Municipality of Bari. The contested facts date back to 2016 and extend until September 2020. The request for precautionary measures is dated 30 December 2022 (with additions dated 20 September 2023 and 5 February 2024). The order was filed by the investigating judge on 7 February 2024 (approximately 14 months later) and executed on 26 February, considering the complexity necessary to coordinate over 130 personal measures, plus seizures and searches.
