Attorney General Luigi Patronaggio has requested a reduction of the sentence to 18 years in prison for Alba Veronica Puddu, the 53-year-old doctor from Tertenia sentenced to life in prison in the first degree for aggravated voluntary homicide, defrauding an incompetent person and fraud, for having promised to cure tumors with ultrasound.
The magistrate took into account the psychiatric assessment ordered by the same Court, presided over by Massimo Costantino Poddighe, who appointed Professor Elvezio Pirfo (already an expert for Annamaria Franzoni in the Cogne case and more recently in the Alessia Pifferi trial). The expert's report assessed the professional as "partially incapable of understanding and willing", but also "socially dangerous and not capable of practicing medicine". The Attorney General also recognized the mitigating circumstances, eventual intent and not direct intent, that is, the doctor did not carry out her conduct because she wanted the death of the patients but accepted the risk. After the prosecutor's closing speech, there was the speech by lawyer Gianfranco Sollai, one of the lawyers for the civil parties together with Rita Dedola, Mauro Massa, Stefano Porcu and Marco Spanu. The court returns on November 15 for the conclusion of the civil parties' speeches and for the discussions of the defense Gianluca Aste and Michele Zuddas.
Puddu, on January 19, 2023, was sentenced to life in prison with daytime isolation. The judges had gone beyond the requests of the public prosecution, which had requested 24 years of imprisonment. The investigation had started after an investigation by the program Le Iene in 2017, in which cases of cancer patients who had abandoned traditional therapies for those proposed by Alba Veronica Puddu were reported.
