Attack on prosecutor Cerreti, Turin chief prosecutor: "Less coverage because she is a woman and works in the North?"
Lucia Musti, chief prosecutor of Turin, denounces the scarce media coverage of the intimidation against anti-mafia prosecutor Alessandra Cerreti. Three hammer blows on the reinforced glass of her escorted vehicle.
Musti (Turin): "Attack on Cerreti ignored because she is a woman and a magistrate in the North"
According to Il Fatto Quotidiano, Lucia Musti, chief prosecutor of Turin, has publicly denounced the scarce media attention given to the intimidation suffered by Milan anti-mafia prosecutor Alessandra Cerreti. "Maliciously but with the courage of my convictions, I am inclined to say that perhaps if an event of such magnitude had occurred against a magistrate operating south of Rome it would have had greater resonance, and perhaps if the magistrate had been male, it would have had greater resonance," Musti said during the Libera conference "Non è altrove", dedicated to the presence of organised crime in Piedmont.
An event of which, according to Musti, "very little has been said". A few days ago, unknown individuals damaged the reinforced glass of Cerreti's escorted vehicle with three blows, probably from a hammer. The investigation has been transferred to Brescia, the court competent for Milan magistrates.
Cerreti is in charge of the major Hydra investigation, considered the largest mafia inquiry currently underway in Italy. Following an initial phase with abbreviated proceedings — which concluded with over 500 years of sentences collectively — the proceedings are now being conducted in ordinary form. A year ago, the escorted vehicles of the same magistrate had been subjected to a pursuit on the motorway: a black SUV had drawn alongside and then shadowed the convoy into Milan.
The threats against Cerreti are not an isolated case. Similar incidents have involved anti-mafia prosecutors from Potenza to Verona, including Milan and Reggio Emilia: women in the judiciary engaged in fighting criminal organisations are increasingly in the crosshairs.
In her speech, Musti also analysed the modus operandi of organised crime in Northern Italy, distinguishing it from that of southern regions. Alongside the "evident terror" with which organised crime operates in other parts of the country, in the North and in Turin there exists what she defined as "silent terror". "For decades," the magistrate observed, "in Piedmont, and similarly in Emilia Romagna from which I come, people believed in the fable, and thus in the denial or lack of awareness, of mafia presences, reassured by the fact that our streets did not register episodes of Kalashnikov shots," she added, with a reference to a recent incident that affected Palermo.
For Musti, the "evident terror" typical of other areas manifests itself in Turin in the form of "silent terror" because "in any case, in order for the mafias to be able to interact and work in our territory, the message must be sent". A message that the chief prosecutor defined as "undoubtedly refined, sometimes cryptic, implied, mediated, but one that knows how to reach its destination".
Source: Il Fatto Quotidiano - Cronaca