One of the two ringleaders in the
sprawling Rome graft case Mondo di Mezzo (Middle World), former
leftwing cooperatives kingpin Salvatore Buzzi, on Monday asked
to be released after the supreme Cassation Court last month
quashed mafia convictions and ordered an appeals court to reset
jail terms in the case.
Buzzi had originally been sentenced to 18 years and four
months in jail.
As an alternative to full release, his defence lawyers filed
a second plea, for house arrest.
The case had been known as Capital Mafia until the mafia
charges were quashed.
The other ringleader is former rightist militant and
ex-gangster Massimo Carminati.
He, too, is seeking early release.
At the appeals level, the ex-member of the NAR right-wing
terrorist group was given a term of 14 years and six months.
The case was initially dubbed 'Mafia Capitale' because
prosecutors said the affair, in which a gang got its hands on
city contracts worth millions, ranging from the running of Roma
and migrant camps to waste management and maintaining green
areas, regarded organized crime.
In the first sentence, judges had said there were two
separate criminal organisations in the case and they were not
mafia-like in nature.
But the appeals verdict said that mafia association was
involved, before the supreme court reversed that reversal and
said the prison terms would have to be re-calculated.
The ringleaders were caught on a wiretap saying they could
make more on Roma and migrant camps than from drugs.
'Middle World' refers to Carminati's nickname for the
demi-monde of politicians, blue-collar workers and criminals he
operated in.
Some former members of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD)
were also involved in the 'Mondo di Mezzo' case and in February
former centre-right Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno got six years for
illegal financing corruption in a separate case linked to it.
In Italy sentences do not usually become effective until the
appeals process has been exhausted.
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