The public prosecutor Agostino Abate transferred to Como

A judiciary bombshell in Varese: Agostino Abate, the public prosecutor with the greatest experience in the public prosecutor’s office, has been transferred to Como by the magistrates’ internal board of supervisors. It is a temporary relocation, brought about by a procedure of the magistrates’ internal board of supervisors towards him. The disciplinary investigation on the subject is not over, but however, for convenience reasons, the magistrates’ internal board of supervisors decided to transfer the magistrate, who was recruited in Varese in June 1984. According to what we know, the objections concern the management of fascicolo Macchi and the disputes in the public prosecutor’s office with some magistrates. Instead, the Uva and Polita issues seem to be excluded from the objections.

Abate has been subjected to polemics and denunciations for some years: to understand, everything started with the Caso Uva, an event that caused a sort of media campaign against him, particularly led by the Pd senator Luigi Manconi who often made him subject of very negative press releases, mentioned by a part of the national press. However, also other accused and civil actions of investigations that got him involved as delegate of the public prosecution are maintaining for a long time a strong polemic against Abate: Lucia Uva, Giuseppe Uva’s sister (inspected by the public prosecutor Abate in two subsequent inquiries for defamations toward the Carabinieri) and Sandro Polita, a Varese building entrepreneur. The entrepreneur is under trial for an Abate’s inquiry but in his turn he denounced him in Brescia. Even the reopening of the inquiries on Lidia Macchi’s murder, in 1987, has been read by some journalistic reconstructions as a critic to the actions of the public prosecutor who was the first to lead the inquiry (Agostino Abate).

However, the clash exists also inside the very own magistrature. The motivations of the disciplinary objections toward Abate, covered by the obligation to maintain secrecy of disclosures in legal hearings, are unknown, but is rather well known that the magistrate, over the years, caused love and hate. Weeks ago some colleagues of the public prosecutor’s office of Varese signed a letter in his favour, but not all of them.

TANGENTOPOLI AND MAFIA
Agostino Abate is a well known magistrate also outside Varese. He has a reputation as being severe and he never had an easy relationship with journalists. The public prosecutor started the tangentopoli of Varese, with dozens of arrests among the politicians of the pentapartito of that period. He was protagonist of a clamorous polemic with Umberto Bossi, and also the public prosecutor who investigated the lega mayor Aldo Fumagalli, outgoing after that inquiry in 2004. For some years he was part of the Dda antimafia and supported the accusation against the Calabrian gangs in the Varese area in two trials involving a large number of accused.

 TOTAL INDEPENDENCY
During an interview some years ago, we heard him defending the idea of a magistrate independent from everything and everyone, quoting a scene of the film “Zeta l’orgia del potere”. Also in the comment on today’s event, Abate mentions his office independency as the only guiding light of his whole career. Two passages of a press release are significant: “No damaged party enjoyed any privilege, not even an investigated person could influence my decisions. My duty was and is resist to the repeated interferences, even the external and media ones, unconcerned of the extraordinary pressures of every kind suffered in the latest years,” writes the magistrate of Varese.