Boss and lawyer convicted of threats to Roberto Saviano and Rosaria Capacchione

• Camorra, threats to Saviano and Capacchione: prosecutor asks for three sentences

• Threat to withdraw escort in Saviano "amounts to state intimidation," says the Council of Europe

• Threats to Saviano: Casalesi bosses acquitted, lawyer sentenced.

  The writer: "Half victory"

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24 May 2021 Two sentences and one acquittal for the threats to the writer Roberto Saviano and the journalist Rosaria Capacchione addressed to them in the courtroom during the Spartacus appeal process in Naples in 2008. 

This was established by the Fourth Criminal Section of the Court of Rome which imposed 1 and a half years in prison on the chieftain Francesco Bidognetti and 1 year and two months on the lawyer Michele Santonastaso. The third accused, the lawyer Carmine D'Aniello, was acquitted for not having committed the crime. The accusation against them is threats aggravated by the mafia method.

During the appeal proceedings of the "Spartacus" trial against the Casalesi bosses in 2008, the clan chief's lawyer read in the courtroom a "proclamation" of recusal of the judges as the author of the best seller 'Gomorra' and the reporter Rosaria Capacchione were accused , at the time at the Mattino di Napoli, to have influenced the judges with their writings. The Naples trial saw over 115 defendants belonging to the Camorra.

The writer

was present at the reading of the sentence of the Court of Rome

who said: "This trial does not compensate, but it has been a long battle that has shown how the Casalesi clan is not invincible". "It was a delicate process that told how a clan tried to intimidate those who wrote about its power. A sentence - added Saviano - which gives me hope, but which will not give me back the 13 years of trial and the 15 years of life under Escort. Living under protection means losing one's life. I am also happy for Rosaria Capacchione, victim of very ferocious years and subjected to attacks. Finally, I am happy that this sentence was pronounced in Rome because it shows how the problem of crime does not concern only the South ".

In a note, the journalist

, commenting on the ruling of the judges of Rome, states: "I am happy that after more than thirteen years another court has attested that what Roberto Saviano and I underwent were not 'suggestions' as we have tried to say, but actual threats and intimidation, as we had perceived them ". Rosaria Capacchione concludes: "Who was there that day and who read that request, in that climate, in those days, never had any doubts. Now a court has also ascertained it for the second time, even if thirteen years are an infinite time ". 

The first instance sentence declared null and void by the Naples Court of Appeal for territorial incompetence, the proceedings had been transferred to Rome. The National Press Federation, represented by the lawyer Giulio Vasaturo, and the Order of Journalists of Campania have formed civil parties in the procedure. The

,

, commenting on the decision of the Court of Rome, declared: "We hope that from this sentence the message will arrive that we cannot attack those who provide information with impunity, nor that it can be done in a court of law. always alongside the reporters, even those less known, precarious, or who do not have the strength to denounce. A sentence that commits us to be more and more present ".