Fu the Prefecture of Foggia and certainly not the former mayor Gianni Rotice to remove the “Guarda che Luna” restaurant on the Manfredonia cliff. This emerges from yet another long interrogation of the former councilor for Public Works, Angelo Salvemini as part of the “Hands off” investigation.
Rotice and his brother Michele said I am Lino investigated for electoral corruptionthey would ask for votes from Michele Romito, to which the restaurant is attributable, guaranteeing in exchange not to hinder the permanence of the restaurant on the city seafront. Salvemini’s statements would have turned the spotlight on the two Rotices, causing them to end up on the register of suspects.
“I can’t do anything anymore”
The dismantling of “Look at the Moon” was passed off as a spot operation of the Rotice administration in the name of legality, but the reality would be very different. It was only the insistence of the Prefecture, led by the prefect Maurizio Valiante, to lead to removal.
So the prosecutor Mongelli to Salvemini: “I wanted to ask you at a certain point Rotice says: ‘Angelo, now I can’t do anything anymore’but until then what had Rotice done for Guarda che Luna?”.
Salvemini: “So, Rotice had done what an administrator – okay? – he would have done to one of his citizens for whose technical problem there was a solution, only that he, despite having promised him the resolution of that problem, when he came up against the insistence of the Prefecture, he was unable to do anything more on the point“. And again: “The resolution of the problem, Romito tells me in the studio that when they made the ballot agreement, that Romito was called to give him a hand, Romito had represented to him this issue of let’s say the problem he had going on, that’s why he already had the request for a technical table in place and so there they make the agreement and he says: ‘You sort yourself out…’, that is, you sort out the problem with the Prefecture – which was the interdiction of the central part which he then resolves with control, obtaining control – and we’ll put the urban planning part in place”.
The Prefecture of Foggia is breathing down your neck
According to Salvemini, the former mayor Rotice was in great awe towards the Prefecture of Foggia: “Now, if the Prefecture told him ‘if you don’t take it down I’ll ban you’, I don’t know that, he never told me, but I always sensed that he had a sort of awe towards the Prefecture, in short, because of the problems, in short, we came from a breakup, then someone highlighted to him the problem that he… I’ve never done this, I’ve never speculated on this because, let’s say, I belong to someone else, I’m a little more yes, I consider myself a little more correct. Someone then asserted the fact that he was the partner of a girl, sister of a person involved in mafia proceedings, etc., and therefore he essentially felt threatened in this sense, that is, of the… negative consequences that would have come to him… In short, it was now clear that the Prefecture was like a carcass on its back“.
Votes for the runoff
Pressed on the alleged Rotice-Romito agreement before the 2021 ballot, Salvemini explained: “What he told me in retrospect, that at the ballot he told him: ‘Solve the disqualification problem and I’ll solve you…’, then if… ”.
Prosecutor Mongelli: “And in exchange, Romito what…”. Salvemini: “And this, the votes! It would have given him a hand electorally and in fact in the run-off, because it seems that in, let’s say, in the first phase of the elections there was perhaps not full support, but this is a deduction I make because I know for sure, they always talked to me about the runoff, of the agreement made in the two weeks before the ballot. Romito telling me this thing here, that he made the agreement, that is, the agreement, that is, he said: ‘He guaranteed me that he wouldn’t take it apart in exchange for my hand…‘; that is: ‘When they called me to ask me for a hand’, I’m not saying that it was really a sort of compensation, as I mean, that is: ‘You give me a hand, I have this problem and you solve it for me’ – ‘Okay, then I’ll solve it for you.”
Finally, the former councilor confirmed what Romito had already reported in another interrogation regarding the meetings with the Rotice brothers: “He told me that they met, let’s say, in Lino’s company which would be in front of… on, let’s say next to Castriotta Auto, it would be in front of the former Ajino Moto. Here, it is called that, in the industrial area of Manfredonia. Sopim Park to be precise. Then I know that it has also been seen on other occasions.”
