Ascoli, 17 May 2024 – In 17 pages the prosecutor general of Ancona Roberto Rossi summarized the appeal with which he asks the Court of Cassation to annul the acquittal sentence issued by the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Ancona against Leopold Wick for the crimes of homocide consumed to the detriment of Lucia Bartolomei, Vincenzo Gabrielli, Domenica Grilli, Luigi Salvucci, Maria Antonietta Valentini and Teresa Vagnoni and for the attempted murder by Giuseppina Cameli.
The appeal was filed with the registry of the Cassation in Rome and we are now waiting for the date to be set for the discussion of the thorny matter which had two key moments: the life sentence for Wick issued on 1 June 2022 by the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Macerata and the sentence of full acquittal with immediate release from prison established by the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Ancona on 6 December 2023. In the appeal presented also at the request of the prosecutor of Ascoli Umberto Monti, the prosecutor general of Ancona Rossi indicates among the reasons the non-compliance and the incorrect application of the provisions regarding the usability of the tests, in the case in question the analyzes on the samples taken from the corpses of the elderly guests of the Offida RSA.
The judges of Macerata they considered that the activities could not be classified as ‘administrative’ but that they had been carried out on the specific assignment of the Ascoli Public Prosecutor’s Office, therefore Wick’s rights had to be guaranteed by allowing him to be represented by a lawyer or consultant during the operations. The appeal recalls a ruling of the Supreme Court of Cassation according to which “the obligation for the ministry to enter in the register a ‘notitia crimes’ against a specific person arises only when specific circumstantial elements emerge regarding the latter, as they are not sufficient mere suspicions.”
For the Attorney General’s Office, the Court of Assizes of Appeal then committed a subsequent error by treating the blood sampling carried out by doctors on the bodies of the deceased and the subsequent analysis “as an unrepeatable technical assessment, which should have required prior notice to the suspect. Instead, it was an urgent investigation which does not require prior notice.” The appeal highlights the “lack, contradictory, and manifest illogicality of the reasons” in Wick’s acquittal sentence.
