There is a lot of secrecy regarding the investigation by the Trani Prosecutor’s Office into the 2022 elections in Canosa di Puglia which also includes the regional councilor of Fratelli d’Italia among those under investigation and candidate for the European elections Francesco Ventola. The investigation became known after the former regional councilor Andrea Silvestri, during a press conference, showed the extension of the investigations against Ventola and other exponents of the city politics of Canosa di Puglia. The alleged crime is that of criminal association aimed at electoral corruption.
An investigation, it was said, on which few details emerge and which would be related to an old investigation by the DDA of Milan which involves entrepreneurs Leonardo and Roberto Matarrese who, intercepted in 2019, would have referred to political knowledge and the 2022 electoral campaign of Canosa di Puglia.
It is suspected that behind the election of two candidates, close to the regional councilor Ventola, there is the support of three entrepreneurs, including the Matarrese family, who allegedly financed an alleged vote-buying with the aim of resolving a building permit. The investigations, which began in March 2022, were extended to November. Francesco Ventola himself had proceeded to have his defense briefs filed by his lawyer; memoirs in which the former president of Bat and now candidate for the European parliament, reiterated his correctness. The situation was well known in the city’s political circles. It was Ventola’s political opponent, the former regional councilor and president of “I love Canosa” Andrea Silvestri, who brought it to public attention. Ventola, for her part, promised to report him for having released the judicial document.
However, it was not Silvestri who triggered the investigation against Ventola and the other people involved in the investigation, including the mayor Malcangio and the president of the city council. «Silvestri and his “entourage” are completely unrelated to the genesis of the criminal proceedings in question on which, moreover, my client correctly underlined the principle of presumption of innocence of the suspects until the final sentence, asking only to correctly inform the citizens and party leaders on the pending proceedings, recalling that “democracy dies in darkness”” the lawyer Enzo Princigalli who represents Silvestri is keen to point out.
