Cesena, 16 May 2024 – All acquitted! The investigation conducted by State Police on certificates to obtain exemption from anti-Covid vaccination or from the use of the protective mask she ended up in a soap bubble. “The fact does not exist” is the formula of the acquittal read yesterday at 6.15 pm in room 105 of the Forlì court by single judge Marco De Leva at the end of a trial that began almost a year ago. That this is a particularly complicated matter is demonstrated by the fact that the judge gave himself 90 days, the maximum deadline, to publish the reasons for the sentence. The crimes contested were false ideology, use of false health certifications and (for one defendant) receiving stolen goods, but the judge deemed legitimate the certifications issued by Roberto Santi, a 71-year-old doctor from Sestri Levante, in the province of Genoa, who at the time Covid had become very popular among anti-vax And no-mask, but had been suspended for ten months by the Ligurian Medical Association. The public prosecutor Alessandra Dati had asked for an eight-month prison sentence for him. The other 18 defendants (those who had requested and obtained the certifications deemed false by the prosecution) were also sentenced to five months in prison, but in the end the defense arguments prevailed.
The defendants acquitted
The defendants acquitted, in addition to Roberto Santi (defended by the lawyer Marco Mori), are Carlo Laurenzi, Alessandra Fantini, Marco Loli and Claudia Cassano (lawyer Antonio Giacomini), Denis Frulloni (lawyer Francesca Fabbri), Riccardo Luzi (lawyer Marco Martines), Nadia Battistini (lawyer Emanuela Villani), Bouchaa Lahouari (lawyer Walter Bartolini), Andreea Candachia and Gjon Tanushi (lawyer Roberto Luceri), Anna Brigida Doria and Manuela Borroni (lawyer Maria Nazzarena Barbarossa), Roberta Pezzi and Emanuela Cangini (lawyer Alessandro Pinzari), Mauro Bonaventura and Antonio Barzanti (lawyer Giorgio Conrati), Silvia Stango (lawyer Giovanni Maio). For five of them the trial was celebrated with the abbreviated rite, but for the purposes of acquittal there is no distinction. The only one to comment on the sentence was the lawyer Riccardo Luzi, who had requested exemption from the use of the mask for his two daughters: “It’s the end of a nightmare” he said.
The investigation
The investigation had begun to Cesena in 2021 on the occasion of one of the first ‘No Fear Day’when Dr. Santi he had climbed onto the speakers’ platform. So he had been contacted by people who claimed to have serious reasons for not wearing a mask or not getting vaccinated. Subsequently the police had checked some people who were not wearing the mask, which was mandatory at the time, and had shown exemption certificates issued by Dr. Santi. Investigations, searches and interceptions had led to 21 warrants.
