Torri trial: the prosecution’s case collapses

When the first verdict was handed down in June in the first trial relating to the high-profile Milan urban planning investigations – the case concerning the Torre Milano in Via Stresa – it sent shockwaves through the legal world: eight acquittals out of eight. A house of cards had come crashing down. The President of the Milan Court, Fabio Roia, however, took it upon himself – in a somewhat irregular manner – to pre-empt the gist of the verdict, explaining in a statement that, in essence, all the defendants had acted in good faith and therefore “the subjective element of the offence is lacking in all cases”. Which it was. Yesterday, the grounds for the judgement were published and, with all due respect to President Roia and those seeking to play down the matter (“the offences remain”, as many said), they are far more damning. Particularly regarding how the investigation was conducted. In the judges’ view, it is “clear that the conduct of the accused municipal officials and the builders” was not “the result of a criminal conspiracy aimed at circumventing the relevant building and town-planning regulations, as alleged by the prosecution but left unproven”. Unproven. “No evidence was presented to support the theory of a criminal conspiracy”, as was instead “vehemently maintained by the prosecution, to obtain an unlawful planning permission to carry out the planned building works”.

The judges state, contrary to the claims of the prosecution and much of the negative press, that “the conduct of the private builder and the designer cannot be deemed to have been malicious – that is, characterised by an intention to circumvent the law – merely because they took advantage of the system in force”. There was no evidence of any malicious intent whatsoever. The municipal officials, the judges added, “have always acted in the firm belief that their conduct was fully in accordance with the law”. This is the outcome—at first instance, it should be noted—of the first trial to reach court amid a mountain of investigations and accusations that were little more than carbon copies of one another, based on a constant straining of the interpretation of laws and facts. It is only the first trial, but the only thing to come crashing down is not the towers, but the credibility of the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office.