Nicole Minetti’s pardon remains. “There are no reasons to reevaluate it,” said the Quirinale in an official statement, issued Thursday, after Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella learned of the results of the investigations he requested following the articles published by Il Fatto Quotidiano.
Following the response from the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office, the preliminary investigation report on the case arrived on Sergio Mattarella’s desk, after first being forwarded to the Minister of Justice. The Italian President took note of the conclusions and confirmed that there are no grounds for revising the pardon that was granted. “Mattarella has acknowledged the prosecutor’s conclusions. There is no reason to reconsider the pardon,” says the Quirinale’s official statement.
Meanwhile, Il Fatto’s editor-in-chief, Marco Travaglio, threatens to sue Milan’s Attorney General, Francesca Nanni, for “smearing and defaming” the newspaper’s work. “Either they apologise or we’ll sue them,” he wrote. Travaglio reiterated in editorials published on Thursday and Friday the integrity of the work carried out by his journalists, adding that he has a correspondent on the ground in Uruguay to keep up with the investigation and that the Milan prosecutor’s office should apologise for stating in its press release that the reports from the journalistic investigation were false. The decision was made – he added – by the same judge who had confirmed the legitimacy of the pardon and on the only testimony obtained by the defence attorneys for the Minetti-Cipriani couple, ruling that the massage therapist, as well as other witnesses than those called by the defence attorneys, should not be heard. Travaglio depicts all this as at least very strange. Il Fatto’s editor-in-chief demands that the prosecutor’s office apologize for the accusations against the newspaper, underlining that otherwise he’s going to sue them for defamation.
Simona Zecchi
