Scafati. Is prison or a clinical center better? “It's like saying if I go to a luxury hotel in Capri I feel more at ease.” Carlo Pagano, the expert appointed by the judges of the Court of Nocera Inferiore to establish whether the health conditions of the former mayor of Scafati, Angelo Pasqualino Aliberti, are compatible with the prison regime, concludes with a joke the answers given to the defendant's lawyer. The expert's conclusions leave no room for interpretation: Aliberti - detained in prison due to an aggravation of the house arrest measure - suffers from an anxiety-depressive syndrome due to prolonged 'judicial' stress, but can receive all appropriate treatment in prison. The expert, appointed by the court at the request of the defense attorneys Silverio Sica and Giuseppe Pepe, visited the prisoner who, according to the defense, was incompatible with the prison regime. He drew up a psychiatric and psychological profile whose conclusions coincide, for the most part, with the expert assessment ordered during the investigation, before he was arrested. The deposition of Dr. Pagano was central to the hearing held before the judges of Nocera Inferiore – president Raffaele Donnarumma – in which the exceptions of the defense lawyers of the defendants were introduced: Angelo Pasqualino Aliberti, Nello Maurizio Aliberti, Monica Paolino, Roberto Barchiesi, Ciro Petrucci and Andrea Ridosso, accused of political-mafia vote-trading for the 2013 administrative elections and the 2015 regional elections. The former mayor spent the entire time sitting in the 'cage' reserved for prisoners. Wearing a blue polo shirt and jeans, his hand resting on his face, and a deliberately absent gaze, he followed the entire hearing without showing any participation. He let himself be taken away in handcuffs, at the end of the hearing, without spending time with his lawyers. The forensic medical expert explained 'technically' what is happening to him: he is subjected to prolonged stress due to his legal case, even before his prison sentence, and his cognitive perception is altered by the state of anxiety and the prolonged use of antidepressant drugs. This state can lead to a real depression, but a progressive evolution of its state is not contemplated. If the stress factor goes away, he may feel better, which is normal. Then, at the request of the defendant's lawyer, he added: “There is a need for therapeutic intervention. At the prison, there are experts – psychologists and psychiatrists – who can pharmacologically manage his pathology. With reference to stress – he explained – it is not the prison itself that aggravates it but the way in which it impacts the prison. The constant emotions then determine in the accused a constant work of his brain and a consequent reduced capacity for analysis”. At the request of the prosecutor Vincenzo Montemurro, the expert emphasized that the prison medical reports show that Aliberti was not deemed necessary to undergo anti-depressant therapy and that before his arrest the former mayor had already shown that he had abused drugs to the point of being hospitalized while under house arrest. And finally Pagano concluded: “This type of syndrome is extremely widespread in prison, among inmates.” In conclusion, however, it is compatible with the prison regime. The medical-legal report served as a prologue to the preliminary objections of the defendants' lawyers. Together with the Ministry of the Interior and the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, the State Attorney's Office has joined the civil action. Instead, the exclusion as civil parties of the two canning entrepreneurs Aniello and Fabio Longobardi, victims of extortion by members of the Ridosso clan, originally accused in the proceedings and who requested the abbreviated procedure, was requested. The charge that sees the two canners as victims of extortion demands is no longer contemplated in the trial underway in Nocera Inferiore since it is being defined in Salerno, so the judges have accepted the request and have excluded their appearance in the proceedings. Having rejected the exclusion requested by the defense attorneys for the Municipality of Scafati due to a procedural defect, the judges reserved the right to decide on two other preliminary issues: the validity of the evidentiary incident, held in Salerno, during the preliminary hearing in which the two witnesses Aniello Longobardi and Raffaele Lupo were heard, and the inadmissibility of some evidence (including the interrogations of these two witnesses) acquired - according to the defense - when the extension of the investigation had already expired. This last issue has also been examined by the Supreme Court of Cassation in recent months.
The judges will lift the reservation on these two exceptions on July 11th and have set a hearing for July 16th when they will decide on the admission of evidence and witnesses. If they should consider the evidentiary incident inadmissible, the prosecution will be able to integrate the list of witnesses with the testimony of Longobardi and Lupo. Then, the trial will be able to get to the heart of the matter. Yesterday morning, representing the prosecution in the courtroom, in addition to the head of the investigation, the prosecutor Montemurro, there was also the deputy prosecutor of the Salerno Prosecutor's Office, Luca Masini.
In the courtroom, in addition to Aliberti, who is in prison, there are also the other defendants: his brother Nello Maurizio, his wife and regional councilor of Fi, Monica Paolino, the former staff member Giovanni Cozzolino, the former city councilor Roberto Barchiesi and the former vice president of Acse, Ciro Petrucci, believed to be one of the men nominated by members of the Ridosso clan. The trial, born from the 'Sarastra' investigation conducted by the DIA section of Salerno and the Anti-Mafia Prosecutor's Office which also led to the dissolution of the city council for mafia infiltration, will get into full swing starting in September when the first witnesses cited by the Prosecutor's Office will be heard.
Rosaria Federico
(In the photo, regional councilor Monica Paolino, defendant in the trial, and lawyer Silverio Sica, defender of her husband Angelo Pasqualino Aliberti)
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