Eight hours in front of the prosecutors. To respond to the accusations raised in over 160 questions and deny any charges. The river interrogation of Giovanni Toti ended on Thursday 23 May in the evening. This then resulted in a 27-page report to which the governor of Liguria attached a 17-page defensive memorandum to supplement it. Toti must answer for corruption, acts contrary to the duties of office and vote swapping and he provided the investigators with his reconstruction of what happened in recent years, ensuring that he “has always acted in the interests of the citizens”. One of the issues on which prosecutors Federico Manotti and Luca Monteverde, together with the deputy Vittorio Ranieri Miniati, focused is that of the meeting on 12 September 2020 at the Punta Vagno restaurant with the brothers Italo Maurizio and Arturo Angelo Testa. The “Riesini” who in the Certosa district of Genoa for the Regional elections of that year would have checked around 400 preferences. The Testa brothers, originally from the municipality of Nisseno, are accused of electoral corruption in order to facilitate the activities of Cosa Nostra. “I certainly specifically asked for votes for Ilaria Cavo when speaking with one of the two Testas”, Toti replied to the prosecutors, “the meaning of my intervention was to ask to lend a hand to Cavo despite the misunderstandings that had existed”. In previous replies, the president of the Liguria Region recalls that the former councilor and current deputy had met them but had not had a good impression, and had asked the entrepreneur Matteo Cozzani to interface. «I took it for granted that there would be a request for attention for their community also from an employment point of view, but I don’t know of specific requests for jobs», Toti replied, «with Cozzani we spoke several times about the Testa brothers, who were nagging and introducing people asking if we could help. Cozzani certainly may have told me that they were also asking for jobs. I certainly never imagined a direct connection between votes and jobs.”
The connection with Spinelli
The magistrates also questioned him about his relationships with the entrepreneur Aldo Spinelli, in particular in relation to the concession of the Punta dell’Olmo beach in Celle Ligure and the thirty-year concession of the Rinfuse terminal in the port of Genoa. «The boat, docked at the fair, was regularly used by Spinelli to meet people. I have frequented it several times”, Toti has no problem saying, who then responds on the beach of Punta dell’Olmo: “My position was that the claim, if compliant with the law, could be supported. The opinion of the technicians was negative. The Spinellis believed that such an important intervention needed to be able to have the beach in front of the structure.” After the negative opinion, it appears to the investigators that Toti met with the technicians again: «I meant to say that, provided that the legislation allowed it, it would have been good also according to our political direction to meet Spinelli’s request. One way could have been to check the number of free beaches and thus be able to give a positive response through that way.” Toti here speaks of the “hope” that the beach could go to Spinelli, while the prosecutors underline that his tone was more “assertive”. The question then shifts to the alleged request for money: was there a request or not? “It’s possible. The group began supporting my political committees in 2015 and this relationship has lasted until now. It is therefore possible that I had asked for financing even before the meeting. Joints? He must have told me that he would do as always… normally the request for funding is linked to an electoral event. It is possible that in my greetings I reminded Spinelli that I would send him the details for the financing. And so I gave instructions to my secretary.” On the Rinfuse terminal Toti excludes that there is a correlation between the extension of the concession and the financing of his electoral campaign: «There is no correlation because he has been financing me for a long time… then he is someone who always tries… he reminds you every time if you can do something for him. Leaving it open would have caused tension among the port operators and would have fueled journalistic controversy that was negative for me.”
