Claudio Foti , the psychotherapist accused in the "Angels and Demons" trial on alleged illicit custody in the Val d'Enza near Reggio, was acquitted of all charges on appeal.
«Truth and justice have won, after four years of pillory. I cried because the accusatory theorem broke down », he said as he left the Bolognese court. In the first instance he had been sentenced to four years.
The man was accused of having caused voluntary psychological injuries to a young patient but for the judges the fact does not exist. He was also acquitted for not having committed the crime of abuse of office, the acquittal of the investigating judge for procedural fraud was confirmed.
The sentence comes while the trial in Reggio Emilia is underway for another 17 defendants, those who, unlike the founder of the Piedmontese non-profit organization Hansel & Gretel, have chosen the ordinary procedure and not the abbreviated one. But it can be significant because the abuse of office charged against Foti was committed, in the hypothesis of accusation, in competition with the mayor of Bibbiano Andrea Carletti , in relation to the assignment without competition, to his association, of the psychotherapy service in the Union Val d'Enza.
The injuries, on the other hand, concerned the psychological damage suffered, again for the prosecution, by a very young patient: anxiety, depression and other disorders, caused by the sessions in which she had participated. Foti was accused of having given her the belief that she had been sexually abused by her father and of having subjected her to the EMDR technique, the controversial "memory machine", "in total violation of the reference protocols". This was precisely one of the episodes that was most talked about when the investigation exploded in the summer of 2019 .
"Angels and Demons" set fire to the electoral campaign for the regional elections in Emilia-Romagna at the beginning of 2020, when Bibbiano, the town of Mayor Carletti, a member of the Democratic Party, became a place of dispute and rallies, ended up on T-shirts worn in parliament, sparked controversy continue.
