Capua. A strenuous defense at the trial that sees him accused of external competition in a Camorra association: the former mayor of Capua Carmine Antropoli has denied the accusations.
“I have never dealt with contracts except in the final phase of my second term to ensure that the public works started were completed, and I did not know that Francesco Zagaria was a member of the Camorra, but he was a patient of mine”. Antropoli, head physician at the Cardarelli hospital in Naples, defended himself before the judges of the Santa Maria Capua Vetere court – assize court – in the trial in which he is accused of external complicity in a Camorra association.
Antropoli answered questions from his lawyers Mauro Iodice and Vincenzo Maiello and from the prosecutor of the Naples DDA Maurizio Giordano during an examination that lasted several hours. Arrested in February 2019, Antropoli spent four months in prison and three under house arrest, returning completely free in the following month of September. According to the Anti-Mafia Prosecutor's Office, the Casalesi clan would have influenced the municipal elections of Capua in 2016 through the figure of Francesco Zagaria (also arrested with the former mayor), a building contractor believed to be close to the Casalesi clan, in particular to the faction led by the almost namesake boss Michele Zagaria (the two are not related), who after his arrest became a collaborator of justice and accuser of Antropoli himself; according to the DDA, the former mayor would have made an agreement not only with Zagaria but also with the Schiavone clan through the contact person on the Capua territory Martino Mezzero, ensuring the clan contracts during the ten years, from 2006 to 2016, in which he governed Capua. Antropoli, however, contested all the accusations made against him, explaining "when I was mayor he was still very busy at the hospital, so I delegated councilors and managers, and I didn't deal with the contracts".
Then he reiterated "only in the last part of my second term, but simply to make sure that the works went ahead. Moreover, I could not even have directed the contracts, since as soon as I was elected, in 2006, I made the Municipality of Capua join the Single Contracting Station; if some contracts did not go through the Suap it is because they had been done by the mayor who preceded me or because they were contracts below the threshold. Furthermore, on another occasion we proceeded to assign a contract without the Suap, when the Region in 2015 made the decree for the acceleration of spending, so in order to spend public funds we had to accelerate the procedures and therefore we could not go through the Suap, otherwise we would have lost the funds". Regarding the disputed 2016 elections, in which Antropoli did not run, having already served two terms as mayor, but supported the candidate Giuseppe Chillemi who then lost, the former mayor spoke about the episode contested by the Prosecutor's Office and which occurred before the municipal elections in his doctor's office, where - according to the prosecution - he allegedly had Francesco Zagaria slap a political opponent, ordering him to withdraw from the elections, which in fact happened.
“The meeting in my office was not planned,” the surgeon said, “I found them at my office, but after the slap I chased them all away.” On the relationship between Antropoli and Francesco Zagaria, considered very close by the DDA and which continued over the years, according to the prosecution, through various meetings between the two at the doctor’s office, Antropoli admitted that “I knew Zagaria because he was a patient of mine, and he came to my office, but it is not true, as the prosecution claims, that the medical certificates issued to him were false and were a way to justify his presence; Zagaria had the pathology reported in the certificates, all you have to do is visit him to confirm it.” “From Zagaria,” Antropoli continued, “I never received any protection or money for the elections as he himself said. Moreover, in his stories, he never spoke of a serious theft that I suffered in 2012 or of the 2013 political elections in which I was a candidate and had high expenses.” Antropoli produced his tax return both as a hospital surgeon and as an entrepreneur (he patented some ointments) to testify that he did not need money for the electoral campaign. The former mayor then rejected the other accusation according to which the clan had supported, even financially, his partner Lucrezia Cicia (not investigated in this case) in the 2015 regional elections. "My partner did not receive support - said Antropoli - indeed she was a victim of the clan with regards to the posting of posters; and for these facts three people were also convicted".
The defendants in Antropoli include former administrators Marco Ricci and Guido Taglialatela and Francesco Zagaria himself, who is also accused of complicity in the double homicide of Sebastiano Caterino and Umberto De Falco, committed in Santa Maria Capua Vetere on 31 October 2003.
Article published on 28 October 2021 - 19:12
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