He stood up and spokeaddressed to the judge, specifying that he himself was almost a victim, having been threatened, and that he had never done anything wrong, at most having thrown water from the irrigation hose into the neighbour’s garden.
But judge Andrea Crema in his monocratic capacity at the Varese court did not believe him and sentenced to 9 months imprisonment, in addition to the payment of expenses and a provisional amount of 2 thousand euros, an 85-year-old man resident in Orino, a small village in Valcuvia. The reason – one of the reasons, hearing the accusation (pm Arianna Cremona) and civil party (lawyer Vera from Osto) – has a precise name: “Terbuthylazine“, that is to say a powerful herbicide, so strong and potentially harmful «that it is necessary to have a special license to purchase and use», which the elderly resident of the village of Valcuvia is accused of having spread on the nearby flowers at home with catastrophic results for his plants. Just one of the “pranks” which would however have given rise to an “alteration of her life habits” in the woman, the formula used by the article 612 bis of the penal code to describe it stalkingi.e. persecutory acts.
«My client», explained the plaintiff’s lawyer, «had to take precise precautions such as returning home every time the neighbor was in the garden». And then the pills, the anxiolytics to suffocate that worry due to constant arguments or to the disputed acts such as kicking and beating the dog, the stones in the garden, the strawberries and flowers that mysteriously withered (and the causes of which are even contained in an expert report which would demonstrate the use of the powerful herbicide with disastrous consequences on plants and surrounding flora) and attempts to remove a parapet placed on the border.
Yes, the border: this would be the casus belli between neighbors who apparently had good relations between residents after the accused sold a piece of land he owned and in the vicinity of his residence to the offended party (the lady, married at the time) who built the house. This, for decades (we are in the second half of the eighties) and until 2017 when the woman decided to build a fence which was immediately contested by the neighbor by virtue of a “view easement” through first access to the documents in the Municipality, and subsequently with a civil case which was strongly debated with experts, but lost by the plaintiff (i.e. the accused who was today convicted in criminal court). After that lost cause the persecutory acts would have started which, however, according to the defendant’s defender, lawyer Antonio Battaglia would not be demonstrable, and for which he asked for acquittal.
The prosecutor had asked for 10 months, and the judge considered the generic mitigating circumstances. The reasons for the judge’s decision will be filed within 90 days.
