Garlasco case: no evidence against former prosecutor Venditti for corruption
A Carabinieri report from Pavia rules out key evidence against Venditti. Prosecutors in Brescia are considering archiving his case.
Garlasco case, dual report exonerates former prosecutor Venditti from corruption allegation
There would not be sufficient evidence to support a corruption charge against former deputy prosecutor of Pavia Mario Venditti. This is what emerges, according to ANSA Cronaca, from a dual report filed by the Carabinieri of Pavia with the chief prosecutor of Brescia Francesco Prete, as part of the investigation connected to the Garlasco case.
At the centre of the Brescia investigative line was the dismissal ordered in 2017 against Andrea Sempio, who was under investigation at the time for the murder of Chiara Poggi. Venditti came under scrutiny after the discovery, during a search of the Sempio family home, of some handwritten notes — the so-called "pizzini" — in which the phrase "Venditti judge dismisses for 20-30 euros" appeared. Investigators had considered that phrase a possible trace of a corrupt agreement between Venditti and Giuseppe Sempio, Andrea's father.
On 26 September, questioned by order of the Brescia prosecutors, Giuseppe Sempio provided his version of events: "Judge Venditti dismisses for 20-30 euros should be a spending forecast that we made at home, on how much we would have to pay the lawyers at the end of the matter". The report filed in recent hours would confirm that those findings were not deemed sufficient to support the accusation hypothesis.
Venditti has always maintained that he dismissed Sempio's case because he was convinced of Alberto Stasi's guilt, who was definitively sentenced for the murder of Chiara Poggi.
Venditti's lawyer, Domenico Aiello, commented harshly on the process that led to the opening of proceedings: "Perhaps finally someone has filled in the gaps and carried out those investigations that should have been ordered before sending the criminal report from Pavia to Brescia. Only when one is truly certain that there has been such a serious violation of law by a servant of the State was it possible to send a criminal report to Brescia, not before". Aiello recalled that Venditti served the State for 42 years "without blemish", adding that his client has suffered "irreversible damage" to his reputation, treated "like a bandit".
Prosecutors Donato Grego and Alessio Bernardi could now be inclined towards requesting the archiving of Venditti's case. A decision that would have significant procedural consequences on the entire file: the basis would fall away under article 11 of the code of criminal procedure that had established Brescia's competence, due to the presence of magistrates from the Milan district among those under investigation. The investigation could thus return to the Pavia Prosecutor's Office by territorial competence.
The same report filed in Brescia would instead aggravate the positions of some Carabinieri involved in the same investigative line, for whom the Prosecutor's Office led by Francesco Prete would be considering the bringing of new charges.
Source: ANSA Cronaca