Alemanno, conviction upheld: repeal of abuse of office is irrelevant

The repeal of the offence of abuse of office, for which the former mayor of Rome Giovanni Alemanno had been convicted, does not exclude that his conduct is still punishable astrafficking in unlawful influence. And this is because the mediation was still aimed at the commission of an offence, consisting no longer of abuse of office, which has now been repealed, but of the crime ofmisappropriation of money or movable property (Article 314-bis of the Criminal Code), a provision that came into force before the repeal. With these reasons, the Court of Cassation considered Alemanno's appeal inadmissible and confirmed the sentence of one year and 10 months, imposed as part of a strand of the "Mondo di mezzo" investigation;

The Supreme Court has filed the grounds with which it rejected the former Prime Minister's appeal against the conviction for trafficking in unlawful influence, the only one left standing after the original charges of mafia association, then dropped, andunlawful party financing. Alemanno's final conviction is, therefore, for the crime of trafficking in unlawful influence (Article 346-bis, paragraph 3 of the Criminal Code).

For the judges, in fact, as a public official, he would have exploited the existing relations with the council offices that had to arrange the financing of Eur and with the Eur top management that had to provide for the liquidation of payments, in favour of the  cooperatives of Buzzi, and had been remunerated by the latter for his illicit mediation. An onerous mediation activity, the subject of an agreement between Buzzi and Alemanno, which 'was characterised by the illicit aim of ensuring to Buzzi's cooperatives a favourable treatment in the payment of past debts in violation of the regulations governing the payment of public administration debts'.