Investigations

Milan, urban planning enquiry: arrest revoked for former councillor Tancredi, city manager under investigation

Former urban regeneration councillor Giancarlo Tancredi, arrested on 31 July in the urban planning investigation, is back free. The same fate also befell former landscape commission chairman Giuseppe Marinoni and manager Federico Pella

14 August 2025

3' min read

The former councillor for Urban Regeneration Giancarlo Tancredi, arrested on 31 July in the urban planning investigation, is back free. The same fate also befell former Landscape Commission chairman Giuseppe Marinoni and manager Federico Pella.

This is what the Milan Re-examination Court ruled, revoking the house arrests for all three and ordering one-year interdiction measures for each. The decision, which comes just a few hours before the hearings, follows that of last Tuesday, when Andrea Bezziccheri, owner of Bluestone, and Alessandro Scandurra, a member of the Landscape Commission, were freed, while the sixth arrested, Manfredi Catella, will appear before the judges next week.

'We will go ahead with this investigation, however. Not because we are obsessed with some sort of fury about the town-planning phenomenon, but because the law requires us to do so,' Assistant Prosecutor Tiziana Siciliano said this morning in a break between hearings before the judges of the Riesame.

"In a huge investigation that has been going on for months in which there have already been so many confirmations - confirmations given by the Riesame, the Cassazione, the Tar, the Council of State - we have an extremely solid foundation," he added. 'I am a great fan of truth'. The re-examination, the prosecutor recalled, 'will assess the purely precautionary aspect and the existence of serious indications of guilt', but 'it does not come out with a sentence of acquittal or conviction. It is a very serious job, very important, but nevertheless limited to this aspect. It is not an assessment of the whole investigation'.

According to the decision of the judges of Liberty, Tancredi is given the measure of suspension from exercising a public office or service and a temporary ban on contracting with the public administration.

The court upheld the order of the gip Mattia Fiorentini on only one of the two charges and re-characterised the offence as 'corruption for the exercise of a function'.

A ban on contracting with the public administration and a ban on practising as an architect was ordered for Marinoni. The same for Pella. At the same time, the investigation is widening.

Christian Malangone, general director of Palazzo Marino, is also under investigation, accused of undue induction in relation to the Pirellino affair. His name emerges from some chats with the entrepreneur Manfredi Catella and Tancredi himself, filed by the prosecution in recent days. The three were part of a whatsApp group called, precisely, Pirellino.

Among the conversations in the investigation files is one from January 2024 between Tancredi and Mayor Giuseppe Sala, who is himself under investigation. "On Tuesday I am going to speak, together with Mandarano and Ciacci, with Chief Prosecutor Viola on the building investigations. Yesterday's ruling by the Court of Cassation on Aspromonte is good, but in the offices the climate is very bad, discouragement and terror of receiving notices of guarantee from one day to the next. It is obvious that this is a political attack that hits the weak links,' the former councillor wrote.

'After your meeting we will take stock,' Sala replied. And in the following days he was updated: 'Meeting with Viola and Siciliano was positive and cordial. Their willingness to continue this dialogue. I proposed a new meeting in a month's time and in the meantime I will send a report explaining what I intend to do with the new Pgt. However, Siciliano seems perplexed about the interpretation of some regulations, which in my opinion are very clear'.