Verdict Expected in High-Profile Montecarlo Apartment Case

The verdict of the trial related to the investigation on the sale and purchase operation, dating back to 2008, of an apartment in Montecarlo, inherited by Countess Annamaria Colleoni to the National Alliance, will arrive in twelve days, on April 30th. After a hearing that lasted over seven hours and during which the last defenders spoke, the judges of the fourth collegiate section of the Rome Court decided to postpone the proceedings and set the date when they will enter into council chamber. The court is called upon to decide on the heavy conviction requests advanced by the capital's prosecution: 8 years of imprisonment for the former Speaker of the House, Gianfranco Fini, 9 years for his partner Elisabetta Tulliani, 10 for her brother Giancarlo Tulliani, and 5 years for her father Sergio. The trial also contests the crime of money laundering. Elisabetta Tulliani, who is Fini's partner: the relationship with the Gauccis (father and son), the Enalotto win, the work on TV. In the courtroom was present Fini who, leaving the court after the adjournment, to those who asked him about the many hours of hearing, replied: "It's a trial that has been going on for seven years, imagine if the hearing was short. We'll see each other on April 30th." The defense team of the former Speaker of the House submitted a defensive memo. In the document, the lawyers Michele Sarno and Francesco Caroleo Grimaldi state that "it is evident how the statement made by Elisabetta Tulliani is incontrovertibly suitable to confirm what emerged in the proceedings regarding Fini's extraneousness." Tulliani "through her own spontaneous statements has made self and hetero-accusatory statements. Statements in which, furthermore - it is said in the memo - she intended to expressly clarify the unawareness, by Fini, regarding the relationships occurring and actions carried out by her together with her brother Giancarlo Tulliani." Regarding the accusations made against Fini by then-parliamentarian Amedeo Laboccetta during the investigations, the defenders claim that they are "clearly mendacious statements and the result of an interest dictated by motives of spite towards the defendant and by the desire to determine (at the stage in which the statements were made) the conditions for a favorable reassessment of their own precautionary framework." Initially, the proceedings also involved other individuals, including the 'Slot King' Francesco Corallo and Laboccetta himself. For them, the decision of the judges on February 29th triggered the statute of limitations for the accusations. According to the initial accusatory framework of the Dda prosecutors of the capital, the members of the criminal association carried out, by evading taxes, the laundering of hundreds of millions of euros. That stream of money, once laundered, was used by Corallo for economic and financial activities but also, the investigators believe, in real estate operations that involved the members of the Tulliani family. The investigations of the Prosecution have therefore also concerned the apartment on Boulevard Principesse Charlotte, which then ended up in the availability of Giancarlo Tulliani who currently lives in Dubai.