Ozzimo sentenced to two years and two months

He was sentenced for his part in the 'Capital Mafia' graft scandal.

 

  ROME - Former Rome councillor Daniele Ozzimo has been sentenced to two years and two months in jail for his part in the 'Capital Mafia' graft scandal. 

  The member of the Democratic Party was convicted of corruption and acting against his duty, having taken 20,000 euros during his Election campaign. "I expected it because you know how these things end in this country" he said, adding that he was planning on appealing.

  The ‘Capital Mafia’ case is one of Italy’s biggest organised crime trials in recent years, one in which councillors and gangsters are accused of stealing millions of euros of public cash. Through cooperation between the gangsters and local politicians, money intended for migrant and refugee centres was redirected to their own pockets. Mobsters had previously claimed that they had made more out of rigging contracts and embezzling money intended for these centres than they ever did from their lucrative drug trade.

  The trial opened in November 2015, with forty six defendants standing trial and is expected to last until this coming summer. 

  According to prosecutors, the mobsters flourished under Rome’s former right-wing mayor, Gianni Alemanno, a former political ally of Silvio Berlusconi. 

  Other politicians on trial include Luca Gramazio, former head of Forza Italia on the regional council and Mirko Coratti, former head of the Democratic Party in the Rome council. Of the gangsters arrested, the most high-profile was Massimo Carminati, 56, who lost an eye during a shoot-out with police in the 1980s. Nicknamed “the last kind of Rome” by his associates, he was sentenced to ten years in prison in 1998 for his involvement with the Magliana Gang, the eternal city’s most well-known criminal network. He was also a member of the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei, the group that was involved in the bombing of the Bologna railway station in 1980, resulting in 85 deaths. 

 

 

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