One year after the second degree sentence in the Supreme Court, the appeal of the former mayor of Turin was discussed, Chiara Appendinoagainst the 18-month sentence imposed by the Court of Appeal for the events in Piazza San Carlo on 3 June 2017. The heart of the trial is what happened on the evening of 3 June 2017, when among the crowd watching on a giant screen Real Madrid-Juventus, Champions League final, panic broke out. There were approximately 1,600 injured, including two women who later died from their injuries. The stoats have established a new appeals process for the former first citizen establishing that it will have to be recalculated the amount of the sentence by reducing it. Appendino had been sentenced to 18 months in prison in the proceedings in which, depending on her positions, the crimes of disaster, murder and injury, all negligently, were assumed. The judges have criminal liability declared “irrevocable”. for the former mayor on all charges.
The trial concerns alleged shortcomings in the organization and management of the event. What triggered the panic among the crowd was, as the prosecution recalled during the indictment, “the wicked action of a gang of criminals”, that is, a group of young men sprayed pepper spray to rob the spectators. “Their conduct – said the prosecutor – revealed the shortcomings” in the organization and management of the center square where it was possible to follow the Bianconeri’s challenge.
The sentences for the former head of cabinet Paolo Giordana and the former president of Turismo Torino, Maurizio Montagnese, were also confirmed on appeal. The then former police commissioner Angelo Sanna was acquitted for not having committed the crime, as was the former head of the police station’s cabinet Michele Mollo, who was sentenced to two years in the first instance. Finally, the head of the police station Alberto Bonzano (one year and 4 months) and Marco Sgarbi, deputy commander of the municipal police (one year and two months) were sentenced. In the reasons for the first degree sentence, issued by the preliminary hearing judge Mariafrancesca Abenavoli given the choice of the abbreviated procedure, it was stated that it was a a “foreseeable event” and therefore “it could and should have been taken into careful consideration with the adoption of all suitable measures to avoid it or, in any case, to counteract its harmful consequences in the best possible way”, wrote Abenavoli.
In the judge’s opinion, the then mayor had a “hasty, imprudent and negligent approach”. Appendino, we read in the sentence, had “commissioned” the event in the square and then disinterested in “all operational aspects”. However, the administration’s choices gave the organizers a “too rigid path” to work within. But the mayor’s responsibility, as can be deduced from the sentence, also derives from a legislative decree of 2000 which attributes to the first citizens with the function of protecting public safety.
