Defamatory tweet about Renzi: Brunetta’s wife will have to compensate him with 20 thousand euros

“I have pictures of Delrio with the mobsters.” To post the tweet, last April 7, 2016, with the photo that portrayed the then Minister of Infrastructure next to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and Ministers Luca Lotti and Maria Elena Boschi, was Tommasa Ottaviani Giovannoni, wife of former minister Renato Brunetta. She published that post under false identities. For that twitter, the economist’s wife was sentenced by the Civil Court of Florence for aggravated defamation to compensate Senator Renzi with a sum of 20 thousand euros. The leader of Italia Viva was asking for half a million euros in damages.

The post was published on Beatrice Di Maio’s twitter account, a fictional name but which, given the surname, gave rise to allegations of responsibility. Then the discovery that the author was Tommasa Ottaviani Giovannoni. For the court, the photo that portrays the leader of Italia Viva “takes on the character of a gratuitous debasement of his honor in the face of public opinion, with an incontinent form of expression”.

Having linked the name “mafia”, according to judge Susanna Zanda, to the three politicians in the photos, “including the one concerning the current Senator Renzi, without any factual element that could justify it, makes the claim for compensation founded, by default of the element of truth and continence”. That post, for the court, translates “into a gratuitous offense that goes beyond both political criticism and political satire which, as the defendant herself says, presupposes a true fact that is then distorted”.