Leonardo Apache’s phone seized, but not the SIM card registered to La Russa father. The president’s staff: “Enough speculation”

MILAN. The mobile phone of Leonardo Apache La Russa, under investigation for sexual assault, has been in the hands of the Milan prosecutor’s office since yesterday afternoon. Only the smartphone, without the sim. The third son of the president of the Senate Ignazio La Russa was flanked by the lawyer Adriano Bazzoni when he handed over his phone, by decree of the assistant prosecutor Letizia Mannella and the prosecutor Rosaria Stagnaro, to the investigators of the Flying Squad. The next step, still to be fixed, will be the forensic copy of the content: photos, videos and chats on messaging apps. With the exception – as already specified in the seizure order – of all the conversations held by La Russa jr with people who enjoy constitutional guarantees, such as parliamentary immunity. First of all his father. An inevitable choice to avoid running into violations of the law and possible appeals on the usability of what could be discovered. The same reason behind the investigators’ decision to have Leonardo Apache remove the SIM from his cell phone. It took days of study to get to the bottom of the legal knot around the phone number associated with the smartphone which is registered to the father’s law firm. In the end, the prosecution judged the process of requesting the Senate’s authorization board to be too long and expensive to also obtain the ballot.

Yesterday, at lunchtime, in the studio a stone’s throw from the Palazzo di Giustizia, Ignazio La Russa, meeting some journalists, was of few words: «I’m serene. The lawyer Adriano Bazzoni takes care of the telephone affair. Ask him. I must acknowledge that I haven’t said a word about this anymore». On the other hand, his staff broke a silence that had been going on for days with a long note. “The conduct of those who replace prosecutors with claims for investigation and preliminary inquiries is no longer tolerable.” However, to “protect the honour” of his family from “political speculation” – while confirming that he has “full confidence in the work of the Magistrates of the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office” – the second state office “was forced” to appoint a another lawyer, the lawyer Vinicio Nardo, former president of the Court of Milan to collect “all the elements that for days go beyond the normal exercise of the right to report and criticize”.

An attack on the world of information accused of having repeatedly published “the photos of another son of the President, with the name of his brother, as well as artificial reconstructions for suggestive purposes of the youthful life of the La Russa brothers and of Leonardo himself (defined as a ‘trapper’ ‘ for having posted on the net only in the year 2019, two songs with lyrics that are not his, while he is now in his third year of university)”. But also the talk shows that hosted «exponents lacking any knowledge of the facts but strong in their ideological convictions, as well as offenses against “La Russa” who, on the other hand, have always stood out for their recognized reputation, honesty and moral uprightness». Then there is “the work of left-wing associations who put up posters and herald political and defamatory flash-mobs”. A reference to the posters glued last night around Milan, including one, later removed, at the entrance to the law firm, by the feminist collective “Non una di meno”. Above a selfie of Leonardo Apache with his father the inscription «El violador eres tú. (The rapists are you, ed)». Meanwhile, yesterday the police listened to the mother of the 22-year-old who denounced the violence. —

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