«The Board believes that there are serious indications regarding the existence of a criminal association aimed at committing crimes against the public administration and the administration of justice». No mafia-type association, therefore, nor of a secret type , in violation of the so-called "Anselmi Law".
For the judges of the Court of Review of Cagliari, therefore, in the papers of the "Monte Nuovo" investigation there would be no trace of the mafia method that characterizes article 416bis , the mafia-style criminal association.
They write this clearly in the reasons for the two orders which confirmed the precautionary measure in prison for the head of Pain Therapy at the marine hospital of Cagliari, Tomaso Cocco , and which had sent the former regional councilor Gabriella Murgia under house arrest, ended up at the center of a major investigation by the District Anti-Mafia Directorate and the Carabinieri Ros.
Over 107 pages of motivation for Cocco, 97 for Murgia, with both provisions signed by judge Federico Loche, member of the panel led by president Lucia Perra. On 20 October both the anesthetist and the former Agriculture councilor appeared before the Court of Freedom, accompanied by the defenders Rosaria Manconi and Herika Dessì (Cocco) and Carlo Figus with Enrico Maria Meloni (Murgia). At the end of the hearing, the judges confirmed the precautionary measure of prison for the first and sent the second under house arrest, taking 45 days to file the reasons. Reasons that were filed today and which exclude the existence of the two most serious crimes hypothesized by the DDA and the investigating judge of the Court , Michele Contini, believing instead that a normal criminal association can be configured, without the mafia aggravating circumstance.
«It must preliminarily be highlighted that the association in question is not of a "mafia type" and does not present any connotation that allows it to be classified as a "secret association" - write the judges of the Review - as the related reasons for review proposed by the defense are well founded" .
The widespread climate of intimidation that generates a state of subjugation (with correlative compression of the self-determination of individuals) and silence would be missing, just as the "intimidating tools" would not be recognisable. The mere "criminal prestige" of one of the alleged members of the association, Nicolò Cossu (known as Cioccolato) , «is certainly not sufficient to give the entire association peculiar, let alone "mafia-like" connotations».
In the meantime, the investigation by the deputy prosecutors Rossana Allieri and Emanuele Secci, of the Cagliari district anti-mafia directorate, continues to reconstruct the entire web of relationships. For now the investigation has involved 31 people accused of having formed a group that united white collar workers and historic exponents of banditry in the Nuoro area to influence appointments and, for some, also protect the fugitive status of the former Scarlet Pimpernel of Sardinian banditry, Graziano Mesina .