Sentenced to 3 years and 4 months for the crime of training for terrorism purposes, but acquitted of the charge of enlistment. It is the sentence inflicted by the Court of Assizes of Cagliari on the former Sardinian policeman who, according to the reconstruction of the District Anti-Mafia Directorate, would have fought in the Donbass alongside the pro-Russians.
The sentence, which arrived in the afternoon after the council chamber, partially accepted the request of the anti-terrorism prosecutor Emanuele Secci who in his indictment had asked for the sentence of Luigi Frau, 51, to 4 and a half years in prison.
According to the indictment, the former policeman from Cagliari - in service until 2007 in the Mobile Department - would have left in the past for eastern Ukraine, now a theater of war, but where a "low intensity" conflict has already been fought for years between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists.
At the end of an investigation by Digos, the Prosecutor's Office had accused Frau of having been to Donbass at least four times between 2015 and 2019, actively participating in the conflict. His defender, the lawyer Giuseppe Cirronis, had instead requested the broadest acquittal, arguing that there are no elements that demonstrate his participation in the guerrilla warfare but not even a recruitment and training activity.
Today the Court presided over by judge Giovanni Massidda convicted him of one charge and acquitted of the second. After the motivations, the defense can file an appeal.
