He was not a foreign fighter who went to Donbass to fight the Ukrainians alongside the pro-Russian rebels . Exactly one year after the sentence of 3 years and 4 months inflicted on the former Cagliari policeman Luigi Frau, 53 years old , accused of training for terrorist purposes, the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Cagliari acquitted him with the broadest formula: “Because the fact does not exist” .
After the appeal by the defense lawyer Pier Luigi Pau, it was the Attorney General, Luigi Patronaggio, who asked for the total reform of the first instance sentence. Before the acquittal, the Prosecutor had raised an objection of unconstitutionality of the law contested against the former policeman. The Court presided over by Judge Massimo Costantino Poddighe agreed with him, acquitting the accused. Luigi Frau himself had already been acquitted at first instance of the charge of enlistment for the purpose of terrorism .
The former agent was accused by Digos investigators and the Cagliari District Anti-Terrorism Directorate who had monitored four of his trips to Donbass between 2015 and 2019 . The prosecution believed that he had actively participated in the war between Russians and Ukrainians, years before the real conflict erupted with the invasion of Putin's troops in the Ukrainian territories with a Russian-speaking majority.
In April 2021, Frau was issued with an expatriation ban , as investigators suspected that he wanted to return to the places of conflict. The former policeman has always denied any wrongdoing, also claiming in the first instance trial that he had never taken up arms and that he had only gone into those war zones to help humanitarian associations as a volunteer and to meet a local woman with with whom he was having an affair . Now the Assize Court of Appeal has dropped all charges, clarifying that he was not a fighter.