All the defendants in the trial in Nuoro were convicted - with an abbreviated trial - for corruption and the introduction of 21 mobile phones into the Badu 'e Carros prison at the time of the escape of Marco Raduano, boss of the Sacra Corona Unita, last February.
The preliminary hearing judge Mauro Pusceddu inflicted 6 years and two months on Salvatore Deledda and Carmela Mele, respectively an agent of the Nuoro penitentiary with the title of assistant chief and sister of the Camorra member Vincenzo Mele, who was also accused and sentenced to 10 years and 4 months.
Penalties ranging from 8 months to 3 years were instead imposed on 6 prisoners accused of receiving stolen goods. Another inmate took a plea deal. The prosecutor had asked for less severe sentences than those imposed today by the judge for the three main defendants: 5 years and 4 months for Salvatore Deledda and Carmela Mele and 9 years and 4 months for Vincenzo Mele.
The defenders, Stefano Stocchino and Roberto Corrias for Deledda and Gandolfo Geraci for Carmela and Vincenzo Mele, had requested the recognition of general mitigating circumstances by virtue of their confession but the judge decided not to grant them.
The investigation began in the summer of 2022 after a report from a colleague of the policeman on trial and then led to the arrest of Salvatore Deledda and Carmela Mele a few months after Raduano's escape. In those months, 21 mobile phones were circulating among the high security inmates, as well as SIM cards, cables and chargers. The material, according to the Prosecutor's Office, arrived in sealed packages sent from Naples by Carmela Mele (belonging with her brothers to a prominent Neapolitan crime family), in the period from July 2022 to February 2023.
The head assistant would receive them and deliver them to the inmates, in particular to Vincenzo Mele who was in contact with his sister, in exchange for 200 euros for each cell phone. Investigators traced two electronic transactions from Camela Mele's account to that of the agent: 1,200 euros in one case, 250 euros in another.
(Unioneonline/ss)