Toti, Genoa Public Prosecutor's Office requested immediate trial

Genoa's public prosecutor's office has requested immediate trial for former president of Liguria Region Giovanni Toti, for port entrepreneur Aldo Spinelli, and for former port authority president Paolo Emilio Signorini. The request has been forwarded to the judge for preliminary investigations who will now have to verify that the conditions are met and then set the trial date. The trial could start between October and November. The three suspects then have 15 days, after the decree ordering the trial, to choose any alternative rites such as immediate trial or plea bargaining.

It was chief prosecutor Nicola Piacente who summoned the lawyers of Toti, Spinelli, and Signorini to inform them of the decision to request immediate trial. 'It was a courtesy,' said lawyers Stefano Savi, Andrea Vernazza and Sandro Vaccaro, 'that the prosecutor wanted to do us. The three suspects have 15 days to ask for an abridged trial or a plea bargain. The judge has five days to set the trial but it is not a peremptory term. "We will not ask for any alternative rite," the lawyers explained. 'We will have all the material to study, including a series of wiretaps that we have not heard so far,' concluded Savi. We also want to listen to the tones used because sometimes they could be jokes."