The Rome court sentenced the undersecretary of justice Andrea Delmastro to eight months. He was charged with revealing official secrets in relation to the anarchist Alfredo Cospito affair.
"I hope there is a judge in Berlin but I will not resign ," Delmastro commented after the sentence, which he defined as "political." The reference to the German capital recalls a play by Bertolt Brecht , where a miller hopes to be judged by an impartial judge.
For her part, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she was "shocked" by the sentence , adding: "I wonder if the judgment is truly based on the merits of the matter", but "Undersecretary Delmastro - said Meloni - remains in his position".
Reactions also from the opposition: "I wonder if the judgment is really based on the merits of the issue", says Giorgia Meloni; "Whoever touches the Democratic Party, for certain magistrates, should be punished", says Galeazzo Bignami; "A political sentence", says Andrea Delmastro... But this right that governs forgetting those who cannot get treatment and those who cannot pay their bills, does it not realize that in a state of law these statements are technically subversive? ", the comment of the secretary of the Democratic Party Elly Schlein .
Delmastro's conviction comes after the Prosecutor's Office had instead requested an acquittal. According to prosecutors Paolo Ielo and Rosalia Affinito, "the subjective element of the crime" was missing.
The proceedings revolved around statements made in February 2023 by Giovanni Donzelli , a party colleague (Fratelli d'Italia) of Delmastro, who reported to the Chamber the content of some conversations that took place during the hour of exercise in the Sassari prison between Cospito - later protagonist of a long hunger strike to protest against the harsh prison regime - and some Camorra and 'Ndrangheta inmates, also under 41 bis. Information that Donzelli had received at the time of the facts from Delmastro himself, who has the delegation to the Dap (Department of Penitentiary Administration).
In their closing statement, however, the prosecution representatives argued that the information "was secret by law" but the subjective element, i.e. intent, was missing, in the sense that Delmastro did not know when he disclosed it that it was secret information.
(Unioneonline/lf)
