Anti-LNG activists in Pesaro investigated for aggravated defamation by Fox Petroli
Lisetta Sperindei and Roberto Malini, members of the Pesaro No-LNG Committee, are under investigation for aggravated defamation following a civil suit for €2 million.
Criminal investigation into Pesaro anti-LNG activists: "We will not stop"
Carabinieri formally notified the investigation notice to Lisetta Sperindei and Roberto Malini, two activists from Pesaro on the Pesaro No-LNG Committee: they are under investigation for aggravated defamation. Il Fatto Quotidiano reports this — more than a year after Fox Petroli Spa initiated civil proceedings, which had already demanded €2 million from the two committee representatives.
The allegations made by the company concern statements contained in a press release and a report that Malini — co-president of EveryOne Group — and Sperindei — former municipal councillor — had sent in May 2025 to the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Environment and Health Ministries and other local and national institutions. In the document, the two reported "a situation of serious environmental and health risk" at the Fox Petroli site in Pesaro, citing "evident problems of contamination, both of the soil and of the groundwater" and referring to "preliminary studies and reports from citizens". They also called for the launch of "an urgent environmental investigation".
The site in question, in the Torraccia district, has historically been designated for oil-related activities for over a century. However, it is located adjacent to the Foglia River Oasis, a protected natural area, and to a densely populated zone. The contested project provides for the redevelopment of a liquid petroleum product storage depot and the construction of a methane gas liquefaction plant connected to the network.
The notification of the criminal investigation arrived approximately two months after the First European Forum on Environmental Human Rights Defenders, hosted at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. At that venue, Patrizia Heidegger, Deputy Secretary General of the European Environmental Bureau, presented precisely the Fox Petroli case as part of discussion on SLAPPs — strategic lawsuits against public participation — frivolous lawsuits used to block activism. The Forum was attended by the Council of Europe, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the European Union's Fundamental Rights Agency and the mandate on environmental defenders of the Aarhus Convention.
Meanwhile, at the institutional level, significant developments have occurred. The Regional Technical Committee of the Fire Brigade expressed a binding negative opinion on the project in 2025, determining the automatic lapse of the positive environmental impact assessment previously released to the company. "In July 2026 the Marche Region clarified that the project cannot be implemented without the positive pronouncement of the Basin Authority and the necessary Feasibility Clearance from the Technical Committee", Malini told Il Fatto Quotidiano. "The new framework of hydraulic risk, with the Piano di Assetto Idrogeologico recently published, has made the question of the area's unsuitability even more central."
Malini emphasises that precisely while he and Sperindei were called upon to account for the words they used to denounce the site's problems, "it was institutional acts that demonstrated that those concerns were not simply the fantasies of activists enamoured with environmental causes".
The case has attracted the attention of international organisations such as FrontLine Defenders, affiliated with the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE) network and Net4Defenders. With their support, the two activists were able to report the matter to the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Despite the judicial proceedings underway, Malini reiterates his intention to continue: "We will continue to focus on the LNG project in Tombaccia, just steps away from homes and the Foglia River, continuing to demand what we have always demanded. And documenting every report: application of regulations, transparency, independent environmental controls, protection of health and respect for the precautionary principle."
On the mechanism of SLAPPs, Malini is clear: "A SLAPP can work even without winning a case. It does not necessarily have to silence those who are sued. For the promoters of criminal and civil cases it is enough to convince a hundred people observing that matter that speaking could cost too much." And he adds: "Today this battle no longer concerns only our situation or the Pesaro plant. We will continue to defend ourselves with absolute serenity, but also to work so that this kind of judicial pressure does not become the price to pay for those exercising the right to participate in public life."
Source: Il Fatto Quotidiano - Cronaca