Police and carabinieri sue the sister of Giuseppe Uva

In the Uva case, it is a war of official papers. Since the latest hearing in the trial, in which there were sparks flying between the prosecution and the plaintiff, the situation has become increasingly tense. A few days ago, the lawyer Luca Marsico lodged a complaint against Lucia Uva and against the journalist on “Le Iene”, who produced the report on the case two weeks ago, which was broadcast on Italia 1. The accusation made during the report is that, on the night on which Giuseppe was arrested and taken to the police station in Via Saffi, he was sexually assaulted.

Marsico is representing 2 carabinieri and 6 policemen, most of those who were working that night, who have decided to sue Giuseppe’s sister for slander. “The accusations must not go any further,” Marsico explained. “My clients have decided to intervene, because the accusations that were made during the TV programme are extremely serious, suggesting a group sexual assault is slanderous, and the policemen and carabinieri involved have decided to react to prevent any more dirt from being hurled at them.”

In the meantime, three of the people who were working that night, have been transferred, but, all the same, the claim is shocking. It is the first time that the forces of law and order, who have remained silent until now, have responded to accusations of beating Giuseppe Uva in the police station. The television programme hints at violence, which stems from a series of analyses which are going to be made on organic material found on Uva’s trousers. But the experts at the trial pointed out that they never mentioned evidence of a sexual assault, and they have been misunderstood. Also Alberto Biggiogero, Giuseppe’s friend, who was in the police station that night said that he does not think that a sexual assault is credible.

The consequences of what happened on those days, however, do not end here, because  there is now a new claim against the public prosecutor Agostino Abate. Ilaria Cucchi, Patrizia Moretti, Domenica Ferulli (relatives of people killed while being held) were present in the courtroom yesterday, and they have written a letter to the magistrates’ governing council, to the Director of Public Prosecutions and to the court of appeal. Their accusation is that of “hostility” on the part of the public prosecutor against Lucia Uva. The letter was written following Lucia Uva’s removal from the courtroom, and it asks for the behaviour of the public prosecutor, which they  consider “threatening”, to be explained.

Today, the Uva family has sent the newspapers a letter written by Luca Ghedini, an appeal court judge in Bologna, which seems to criticise the public prosecutors of Varese, which is unusual among magistrate colleagues. “At the end of the hearing, on the basis of the conclusions reached by the expert analysis requested by him, the judge ordered the body to be exhumed for further forensic checks to be made. I ask my colleague assigned the Uva case: is it possible that the judge also misinterpreted the preliminary examination which he failed to read carefully? Although some might not like it, the penal process is public, and the records are known and knowable. Is it not right to question? Or should anyone responsible for manipulation be left undisturbed?”