All acquittals and one charge of embezzlement reformed and declared time-barred. Almost eight years after the investigation into alleged illicit acts and abuses at the Chamber of Commerce of Cagliari was closed, the Court of Appeal has dropped almost all charges against the top management of the institution that associates and promotes commercial enterprises in the province. For the former president Giancarlo Deidda and the former general secretary Luca Camurri, a series of alleged abuses of office have fallen because the crime has been abolished, while full acquittals have arrived for embezzlement and forgery, the latter also charged to the official Simonetta Oddo Casano. The former number one of the institution has also had an embezzlement case declared time-barred for the use of company cars: Deidda will have to pay two thousand euros in compensation to the Chamber of Commerce.
Convictions overturned
The Court of Appeal, presided over by Judge Giovanni Lavena, has therefore accepted almost all the requests of the defenders Patrizio Rovelli (Deidda), Gianluca Aste (Camurri) and Rita Dedola (Oddo Casano), reforming the first-instance sentence with which the Second Criminal Section of the Court had sentenced the former president to 4 and a half years, the former secretary to 5 years and 4 months and the official to one year. In detail, Deidda and Oddo Casano were acquitted of the hypothesis of forgery (the fact does not exist) for a resolution that had assigned legal guardianship to Camurri. For the latter, the fact does not exist also for the accusation of embezzlement derived from the supply of plants to the Fair and for a hypothesis of defamation. The challenge of some alleged abuses of office by Camurri and Deidda have fallen because Parliament has abolished the crime, while for the alleged illicit use of a blue car of the Authority, the former president has seen the crime requalified as "embezzlement of use", a lighter hypothesis compared to embezzlement, which has been declared time-barred. He will have to liquidate damages of 2 thousand euros to the Chamber of Commerce, constituted as a civil party with the lawyer Matteo Pinna.
