Sentenced to thirteen years in prison for “criminal association for irregular immigration”, it was received by its supports in the French capital.
Le Monde
Under the light of the neon of a hall of the Labor Stock Exchange, in Paris, adjoining the amphitheater where, Wednesday, November 17, his French friends and Italian expatriates together for an evening of support, Man seems tired of the weight that weighs on his shoulders. That of being no longer just a man among the men, coming from a small corner of the poor south of Italy, but a living symbol: Saint and Martyr for his supports, scarecrow and crook for his opponents, he who had without doubt, at first, just tried to do well.
Domenico Lucano, 63, known under the diminutive of Mimmo, has experienced a time the glory and praises of the proponents of humanistic discourse on migratory issues, for its original model of exiles. On September 30, the former mayor of Riace, from 2004 to 2018, was sentenced to an overwhelming sentence of thirteen years in prison, convicted of criminal association for irregular immigration, fraudulent practices, diversion of public goods and public service abuse. Justice also calls for him to reverse 500,000 euros of public aids perceived by the municipality.
In this locality that has fewer than 2,000 inhabitants, he had favored the integration of migrant people into the name of the principle of unconditional welcome but at the price of certain circumvents of the law which are now worth of the judicial Generally considered disproportionate, especially since no one suspects the old mayor of less personal enrichment.
“My situation is inexplicable legally, summarizes Mr. Lucano, and I do not expect the Italian justice as an institution.”
It is blamed in particular to have given his downstream to white marriages and having entrusted outside forms to migrant cooperatives responsibility for the collection of waste in his city. He is now waiting for his appeal trial. “This condemnation has been a blow to the heart, testifies Mimmo, whose pain is reflected in a calm mask. I assume to be out of legality, but legality and justice are two different things. Legality is the instrument power and power can be unfair. “
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For Mr. Lucano, this conviction is fundamentally unrelated to the facts that are reproached for him, and even with the decline he explains that he n There has been nothing to his methods. The problem, according to the old mayor, would be elsewhere. “By this judgment the power tries to delegitimate all that we have accomplished, a model that is the antithesis of what this extreme right is going on everywhere, animated by hatred. They try to kill an idea,” said Judge-T. -This while in the adjoining room we have been waiting for the public by playing a Bella Ciao a nostalgic strand and other songs out of the classical directory of the Italian left.
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