The first time the judge had abstained, now the entire procedure has been cancelled and sent back to the Prosecutor's Office because the Court discovered that the mandatory notifications to the defendant, the former Cameroonian footballer Samuel Eto'o, accused of violating the obligations of family assistance, for not having paid part of the maintenance of his daughter, Annie, born in 2002, would not have been successful.
Irregular notifications
The dramatic turn of events occurred in the courtroom of the judge of the Court of Cagliari, Giorgio Cannas, where the start of the trial against the former champion of Inter and Barcelona was scheduled - at the opening of the hearing. However, when the trial was called, the judge immediately realized that neither the defense attorney nor the civil party were present. Hence the decision to slide him to the end of the list, so as to finish all the other trials first. Shortly before 2:00 p.m., when only that file remained, the Court appointed a public defender and asked the public prosecutor to show the regularity of the notifications to the former champion. It thus emerged that neither the notice of conclusion of the preliminary investigations nor the notice of setting the hearing would have been successful. After having moved abroad, in fact, it was no longer possible to track down Eto'o to inform him of the status of the investigation. Unable to prove that notification had taken place, Judge Cannas thus declared the notice of conclusion of the preliminary investigation and all subsequent acts null and void, returning the file to the Prosecutor's Office so that they can proceed with the search for the suspect. The proceedings, therefore, return to the investigation phase in the hands of the public prosecutor who will have to track down the former footballer to inform him of the criminal proceedings.
The criminal proceedings
Two years ago, a first plea bargaining request was rejected by Judge Gianluigi Dettori who, after the decision, had to abstain. In March of last year, with a new judge, the trial of Samuel Eto'o was then postponed again to set a new hearing. The one who reported it was the mother of the child born in 2002, Anna Barranca, from Iglesias, defended by the lawyer Danele Vianello, who had met the former champion of Barcelona, Inter and Chelsea the year before in Mallorca. After the abstention of the judge last year, the Court had requested that Eto'o elect domicile with his lawyer, so that the documents could then reach their destination. This did not happen and, in the end, Judge Cannas had to acknowledge that there was no proof that the international notifications had been successfully completed (Eto'o would have moved back to Africa). The Cameroonian player had recognized the girl, after being forced to undergo a DNA test, but had never wanted to meet her. He was sentenced in 2012 (and in 2015 on appeal) to pay his ex-partner about half a million euros in arrears.