Benevento
He brought with him quite a lot of documents. As soon as he sat down before the Court – he will remain there for four hours – he declined his personal details, then the president of the judging panel, Fallarino (alongside Telaro and Nuzzo), after having reminded him that he could make use of the right not to answer, told him asked if he intended to undergo the test. Felice Panzone, one of the 36 defendants in the trial arising from the Digos investigation into the management of some migrant centers in Sannio, had been waiting for this moment for a long time and had no doubts: “Of course yes”.
The initial questions of the prosecutor Patrizia Filomena Rosa, which were followed by those of her defender, the lawyer Alessio Lazazzera, and the lawyers Pietro Farina (he insisted on an intercepted interview with his client, Paolo Di Donato) and Antonella Maffei, have allowed us to specify that “In July 2015 I was transferred from the Ariano Irpino Police Station to the Prefecture of Benevento, assigned to the administrative-accounting service. In October, when he replaced Circelli, the deputy prefect Giuseppe Canale decided to avail himself of my collaboration in the immigration service. Until December 2016 I was the front office of the same service, Canale had entrusted me with the task of communicating with those who needed information or wanted to open centers”.
In that period – he continued – “I dealt with the problems of 75 facilities with 3 thousand guests, I knew every day how many places they had available, but it was always Canale who assigned the migrants, I never did it nor could I have done it, except on one occasion”. The official, who has also been suspended from his salary since 2018, revealed the details of an unknown episode: “Canale received a request from the Flying Squad to find in absolute secrecy a place for a justice witness in an investigation into human trafficking conducted in another province. She gave me this assignment, I completed it, I don’t think I can reveal the arrangement given anonymously to the woman: it was the only time I made the choice”.
Panzone then underlined “the obsessive search for places at a time when Benevento and the province, with the daily arrival of migrants, had been hit by a tsunami”. A representation to which the PM contrasted the number of arrivals (5 thousand) throughout Italy. He also reiterated that, with respect to the assignments, the “The Prefecture did not favor or disfavor anyone, we had a mission which however failed: to open a center in every town”, then he cited the case, which emerged “while waiting for the tenders to be completed”, of two “beautiful bed & breakfasts in the centre of Benevento to which 20 women suffering from scabies were given. The owner took them in, then gave up, he wasn’t ready….”.
As for overcrowding, the accused traced it back to “to the redundant condition in which the Prefecture had placed all the centers: we were obliged to do so for emergency reasons”. Finally, in relation to the content of some wiretaps, he explained “the joviality of certain conversations between two men whose transcribed text does not contain smiles or laughter”and that the Prefecture “every month he witnessed the delivery of the pocket of 2 and a half euros to each migrant by the center manager”.
The hearing of another defendant, Giuseppe Pavone (lawyer Luca Guerra), an employee of the Court, has been postponed to October 10. He is accused of two counts of fraud against the State regarding absences from the workplace due to illness or permits related to Law 104 that he allegedly used for deliveries on behalf of his spouse’s company.
