No one had noticed. Five years after the referral to trial, when the trial seemed destined to end to give the floor to the public prosecutor for the discussion, the trial of the alleged gang accused of having facilitated illegal immigration, in exchange for money, will have to start all over again. Reason? The crimes alleged by the prosecution would be the responsibility of the Court of Assizes and not of the collegiate tribunal that was judging the 13 defendants. Yesterday morning, the judges accepted the defense's objection, returning the documents to the prosecutor Enrico Lussu who will have to ask again for the preliminary hearing to be set. In short: everything to be done again.

The incompetence

In technical jargon it is called “exception of incompetence” and is requested when it is assumed that a judge is not competent to deal with a certain case. This may concern incompetence by subject matter (the crime does not fall within his field of action), by territory (it did not occur in his district) or by connection (the case is connected to another crime within the jurisdiction of another judge).

And in this case, since the prosecutor contests the aiding and abetting of illegal immigration with also criminal association, the jurisdiction is of the Court of Assizes and not of the panel that was judging. The lawyers Sebastiano Desogus, Valeria Cau, Massimo Puddu, Fabio Pili, Massimo Atzeni, Hiram Cossu and Fabio Cannas realized this and formalized the exception.

The decision

After leaving the council chamber, the panel presided over by Judge Lucia Perra (who inherited the proceedings after the preliminary investigation was concluded) accepted the defense's request, declaring the nullity of the decree ordering the trial and returning the file to the public prosecutor so that he can proceed with a new request for a preliminary hearing. Born from a complaint for an act of vandalism, the investigation then resulted in several people being accused, in various capacities, of criminal association, aiding illegal immigration, forgery of documents, attempted extortion and damage.

The idea of the Prosecutor's Office is that there was a system through which the alleged gang procured fake employers, homes and false documents for migrants, while others would have pretended to be owners of the companies that proceeded with the hiring. Dozens of irregulars would have been brought in this way from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Ukraine, Africa. At the top, according to investigators, there would have been Sabrina Giacomini, daughter of the missing "magician" Giancarlo, but the trial will have to start from scratch also for Stefania Addari, Giovanni Cantarelli, Cristian Desogus, Raj Kumar, Kane Ndama Loum, Gianfranco Marongiu, Roberto Metta, Francesco Secci, Efisio Serra, Roberto Simoni, Simona Muscatello and Tarlok Chohan.

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