Former public prosecutor Tiziana Siciliano’s withdrawal from the Milan mayoral election: “Too many attacks and falsehoods”

Magistrate Tiziana Siciliano has decided not to stand as a candidate in the forthcoming local elections. “I had expected to be drawn into the usual controversies – even the most aggressive ones – associated with election campaigns, but the serious attacks based on falsehoods and insinuations relating to my former profession, which followed merely my announcement of my willingness to stand, forced me to reflect, and I have now reached my conclusions,” the former magistrate told Open. As an assistant public prosecutor in Milan, Siciliano coordinated the team which, in 2025, entered Mayor Beppe Sala in the register of persons under investigation as part of the large-scale inquiry into town planning. 

As we noted here, Siciliano retired in December 2025. Shortly before that, she had led the investigations into town planning that had been rocking the political and economic life of Milan for three years.

In early summer, news emerged of her candidacy for deputy mayor on the ‘Milano Libera’ civic list, promoted by Massimiliano Lisa (owner of Leonardo3, a museum located in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II), who will also be standing for election. “I can only say that it comes as no surprise,” commented the mayor of Milan, Beppe Sala, at the time.

The news, after all, had sparked considerable controversy. As Luigi Ferrarella of the Corriere wrote, as quoted here, the former deputy public prosecutor of Milan had accepted the political role with Lisa “despite knowing that she herself, in her capacity as head of the ‘crimes against the public administration’ task force in 2025, had assigned Lisa’s complaint to a prosecutor within the task force; and that she had made herself available for the candidacy without considering the inappropriateness of this, particularly in relation to her former office, which she knew was assessing Lisa’s complaint”. The continuation of the legal battle by other means.

Throughout her career, Siciliano has covered trials that have attracted significant media attention: from the Ruby case to the Santa Rita clinic case – dubbed the ‘clinic of horrors’ – to the 2018 Pioltello rail disaster, from the trial of Marco Cappato in the DJ Fabo case to the fire at the Casa per coniugi care home. “There are those who wanted to see this as the culmination of an ambition for a political career that already existed whilst I was still in the judiciary,” the former public prosecutor told the online newspaper. She opted to step down so as “not to drag the institution – of which I am honoured to have been a part for 40 years and to which I still feel, morally, that I belong – into unhealthy controversies”, and "to protect from any exploitation the work of those who continue to serve the public interest impartially, and in particular my colleagues at the Public Prosecutor’s Office who have worked with diligence and commitment".