Garlasco, the Milan Public Prosecutor asks for the revocation of Stasi's semi-custodial sentence

Milan's public prosecutor's office has filed an appeal with the Court of Cassation requesting the revocation of the order with which in recent weeks the probation court granted semi-freedom to Alberto Stasi, the then boyfriend of Chiara Poggi, who is currently serving 16 years in prison. According to information, the reason for the appeal is related to the failure to request permission to give an interview to the programme Le Iene during a permit for a family reunion. The case, for the prosecutor, should have been assessed differently by the judges.

On 11 April, Stasi, after having already obtained 'external work' in 2023, i.e. the possibility of leaving the prison every day to work as an accountant in a Milanese company, was also 'admitted' to the 'semi-freedom regime'. Since 28 April, therefore, when the measure of the Surveillance became effective, Stasi can leave the prison in the morning, at a precise time indicated in the prescriptions, and must return in the evening, after dinner in essence and always at a fixed time, thus being able to stay out more than twelve hours in total and not only to work.

The Prosecutor General's Office, headed by Francesca Nanni, with deputy Prosecutor Valeria Marino, had already requested, at the hearing on 9 April, the rejection of the application for semi-freedom, pointing out a single 'flaw' in his behaviour, that is, the failure to request authorisation from the Supervisory Magistrate for that interview, during a 'bonus' leave. In a document in the file of the proceeding, however, the director of the Bollate prison, Giorgio Leggieri, had wanted to specify that it had 'been recorded during the bonus leave', on 22 March, and that 'there were therefore no breaches of the prescriptions'. The same line held in the order by the judges (Caffarena, Gentile and two experts), who had agreed with Stasi's lawyers.

The judges in the order had cited the all-positive reports of the prison team and explained that the 41-year-old, a former Bocconi man and in prison for ten years after the final sentence in 2015 for the murder of Garlasco, although he has always proclaimed himself innocent, has kept 'a behaviour in line with the acceptance of the sentence'. And 'he always showed empathy and suffering towards' the victim. For the Attorney General's Office, however, the failure to request authorisation for that interview is behaviour that the judges should have assessed differently and not in line with the granting of semi-freedom. Now the Court of Cassation will have to set a hearing and decide. Before long, among other things, Stasi will also be able to apply for probation to social services, an alternative measure to detention.