Final stages in the Court of Assizes of Appeal in Cagliari for the trial against Alba Veronica Puddu, the 53-year-old doctor from Tertenia sentenced to life imprisonment in the first instance for aggravated voluntary homicide, defrauding an incapacitated person and fraud for having promised to “cure” tumors with ultrasound. This morning in the courtroom the speeches of the defense represented by the lawyers Gianluca Aste and Michele Zuddas who, on the basis of the partial mental infirmity recognized by the Court's expert for their client, asked for acquittal. On January 19, 2023, Puddu had been sentenced to life imprisonment in the first instance: the judges had gone beyond the request of the public prosecution, namely 24 years of imprisonment .

"There is no causal link between Dr. Puddu's conduct and the death of one of the patients," Aste explained. "Therefore, we do not recognize the contested eventual intent: Dr. Puddu did not accept the risk that her patient could die, she wanted to treat him." The civil parties, however, with the lawyers Gianfranco Sollai, Rita Dedola and Mauro Massa, "given the diminished but not total incapacity of Dr. Puddu," have joined the request for a sentence of 18 years formulated by the Attorney General Luigi Patronaggio . The three lawyers have also asked for confirmation of the damages already awarded with a provisional sentence from the first-instance sentence.

The court will return on January 10th for any replies and for the sentence. The psychiatric assessment ordered by the Court and entrusted to Professor Elvezio Pilfo - already an expert for Annamaria Franzoni in the Cogne case and more recently in the trial of Alessia Pifferi - has established the partial incapacity of understanding and willing of the defendant, considering her however "socially dangerous and not capable of practicing medicine" . At the end of the closing speech, the Attorney General had recognized the mitigating circumstances, the eventual intent and not the direct intent, that is, the doctor did not carry out her conduct because she wanted the death of the patients but accepted the risk.