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For a few days in the newspapers there has been talk of accusations of theft from Piero Fassino, a well-known deputy of the Democratic Party who in the past held important political positions: according to these accusations Fassino tried to steal a perfume from a shop inside the airport Fiumicino in Rome. He himself confirmed that he had recently had a problem with airport security, but said that there had been a misunderstanding and that in reality he had no intention of stealing anything. At the moment, however, the accusations against Fassino have not been formalized in a complaint.
Among other things, Fassino was Minister of Justice between 2000 and 2001 and mayor of Turin between 2011 and 2016. He was a member of parliament between 1994 and 2011, and then again since 2018. He is 75 years old.
The facts date back to last April 15th. According to the reconstruction of Everyday occurrence, who first broke the news, Fassino had to fly from Rome to Strasbourg to attend a meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where he is president of the committee on the Middle East (the Council of Europe is a which has nothing to do with the European Union and deals with democracy and human rights). After passing the routine checks Fassino had entered a duty free and he had put a women’s perfume costing around 100 euros in his jacket pocket.
There are conflicting versions regarding the dynamics with which Fassino was stopped by the security guards. Fassino explained to Done that while he was in the shop he wanted to use the telephone to answer a call, and for this reason he had temporarily put the perfume in his pocket, with the idea of then going to pay for it: «Having the trolley in one hand and the mobile phone in the other , not having three hands yet, I simply placed the perfume package in my jacket pocket, waiting to go to the checkout”, he said. According to Fassino, the gesture of putting the goods in his pocket had been noticed by security officers, who stopped him inside the shop and then alerted the police. According to DoneInstead, Fassino apparently walked away from the tills with the unpaid perfume in his pocket, prompting the intervention of the officers. There are other discrepancies too. Fassino said to Republic that while he was in the shop he had his mobile phone “in his hand”. However, no phone can be seen in the videos, according to an anonymous source who had access to the videos from the security cameras, again cited by Republic.
In any case, after being approached by the security Fassino presented his version of events to the officers, trying to explain the alleged misunderstanding. A witness, again cited by Done, said the MP had offered to pay for not just one bottle of perfume, but two, to demonstrate his good intentions. After looking at the images from the security cameras, the agents nevertheless decided to report Fassino to the Polaria, the air border police.
On April 24, interviewed by the radio RTL 102.5, Fassino said: «I’m not well, I’m not coping well with this matter, which causes me discomfort and a lot of uneasiness. It’s all the result of a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding that I hope will be clarified […] It is an episode that makes me deeply uncomfortable.” Fassino also said he had not received any notification of the complaint up to that point. On Friday his lawyer, Fulvio Gianaria, also confirmed a Republic of not having received anything.
L’Handle wrote that for now Polaria has collected the footage from the security cameras of the duty free and the testimonies of some of those present. In the next few days the material should be sent to the Civitavecchia prosecutor’s office, responsible for the Fiumicino area, who will decide how to proceed.
