There is a lot of nervousness on the Italian right of Giorgia Meloni’s government a year before the elections, if they are not brought forward to spring, given the rise of the new ultra leader, former general Roberto Vannacci, who accuses the Executive of being too soft and who already obtains 7% of the votes in the polls, above Matteo Salvini’s League. That is why competition arises from any current event that lends itself to demonstrating who is more extremist. The latest has been the definitive conviction to 14 years and nine months in prison for a jeweler from Grinzane Cavour, in the Piedmont region, for shooting dead two assailants and injuring a third in 2021, whom he followed with a pistol in the street as they fled and shot in the back. The video images are clear.
The jeweler’s name is Mario Roggero, 72 years old, and he has become a martyr for the right, which is already demanding a pardon for him. He already was, as it is a well-known case, but the novelty is that it is now official. The attack on the judges has come from the Government itself, with Meloni at the helm, and for days now nothing else has been talked about in Italy. The Court of Cassation, equivalent to the Supreme Court, has confirmed that there was no legitimate self-defense, because the threat and danger had already passed with the escape of the assailants, and few jurists question the resolution. But after the sentence, last Wednesday, the Executive came out in force to criticize the judicial decision, as it has already done on several occasions in this legislature. And Elon Musk, who sometimes intervenes in Italian affairs, joined the offensive: “It’s crazy! It is the judge and the prosecutor in this case who deserve this conviction.”
The National Association of Magistrates (ANM), which brings together 90% of Italian judges and prosecutors, has denounced threats and insults to members of the judiciary “just for having applied the laws.” “Greater responsibility would be needed from those who hold institutional positions,” it stated this Tuesday in a press release. “Criticism is legitimate, but feeding a narrative that points to magistrates as the target to be brought down means contributing to a climate that can degenerate into hatred and intimidation,” the organization warns.
The right is exploiting one of its themes, security, and another event that occurred this Sunday has added more fuel to the fire: the death in Bologna of Abderrahim Fakir, a 42-year-old Moroccan citizen, immobilized on the asphalt by two officers after showing signs of mental imbalance and attempting to assault them. He was asking for help, although four members of an ambulance’s medical staff were present and only acted later. According to the Red Cross, it is the established protocol; they only intervene when law enforcement authorizes them. There is another chilling video recorded by a neighbor, and in this case, the role of the police is under discussion. With a nuance that has parallels with the jeweler’s case: a recent decree from February, which was already controversial at the time, grants the two officers, and also the four ambulance volunteers, a “penal shield.” They are not automatically investigated, because it is understood a priori that they acted in fulfillment of their duty, out of necessity or legitimate self-defense. They will only be investigated if subsequent evidence emerges.
Protest demonstration in Bologna
This Monday in Bologna, a protest demonstration was held — with subsequent clashes that caused 11 injuries — because in Italy there have been similar and very controversial cases of police excesses in arrests that ended tragically in the past, such as those of Stefano Cucchi, Federico Aldrovandi, or Riccardo Magherini. The Minister of Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, has assured that “it will not be a new Cucchi case” and if the officers are guilty, “they will pay for it.”
The truth is that in the jeweler’s case, the courts have done nothing more than apply a law already reformed in 2019, to provide more guarantees to those who defend themselves, by Salvini himself when he was Minister of Interior. Nevertheless, the League has now presented a bill to ensure that legitimate self-defense covers any violent reaction in the context of a threat.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has deemed the sentence imposed on Roggero “disproportionate” and has called for “greater consideration” of the case’s context — judged by three courts — to understand the “stress of exasperation and pain” of the convict. At the time, the jeweler was in the shop with his wife and daughter, they were threatened at gunpoint, and they had already suffered a robbery in 2015. However, it should also be noted that in 2005 he threatened his daughter’s boyfriend and his parents with a pistol after showing up at their house following an argument between the two young people (he agreed to a two-month prison sentence).
In the opinion of the far-right leader, it is “a mistake to believe that the moment the impact of a threat ceases can be clearly distinguished”: “If an aggression is suffered, our brain enters combat mode.” The Prime Minister criticizes that the merchant was convicted for “not having kept a cool head in a context of high danger and stress, with emotional peaks that are rarely controlled even among security professionals.”
For the opposition, the Executive wants to impose “the law of the Wild West.” “We are facing a competition that has nothing to do with the protection of citizens, but with the search for consensus on the right,” said Chiara Braga of the Democratic Party (PD). “After having failed in security, with increasing crime, they have found the recipe to shift responsibility onto citizens: buy a weapon and take justice into your own hands,” said Giuseppe Conte, leader of the Five Star Movement (M5S).
The Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio, even requested the granting of clemency the day after the final sentence, a power of the President of the Republic, and then Meloni explained that it was her order. The Head of State, Sergio Mattarella, in response, reminded him of the same in a laconic statement: that it is his competence and the proposal should follow the usual procedure. It requires the applicant’s repentance, something Roggero only expressed on Saturday when he entered prison, and it is a procedure that lasts years and is granted sparingly.
Matteo Salvini, the most concerned about the competition from Futuro Nacional, Vannacci’s party, wasted no time in getting a T-shirt with the phrase “Gracia súbito” (Immediate Pardon) and has already visited Roggero in prison twice. He has also put forward the possibility of presenting the jeweler as a candidate on his electoral lists, something Vannacci had already suggested, but which is not legally possible. The former general already wore another T-shirt in June that said “We are all Mario Roggero” at an event organized in Vicenza.
