The vice president of the Antimafia on trial for extortion. The opposition: “Resign”

The vice president of the Sicilian Anti-Mafia, Ismaele La Vardera, asks Riccardo Gennuso (Forza Italia at the Ars), also deputy in the Commission and both elected a few days ago, to take a “legitimate and sacrosanct” step back to “not put embarrassed an organ that should be above all parties”. Gennuso has been on trial for some years, together with his father who was a regional deputy, for extortion in the context of an investigation by the Palermo prosecutor’s office into the management of a bingo hall. “If anyone thinks that my office will be characterized by political correctness, they are wrong – says the former hyena La Vardera, elected with South calls North by Cateno De Luca – for this reason I have decided to break this wall of silence, because the question morality cannot be neglected, especially by those like me who belong to a body that they consider institutionally sacred: the anti-mafia commission”.

On the same wavelength Roberta Schillaci and Jose Marano of the M5S: “The election of Riccardo Gennuso as vice president of the Ars Anti-Mafia commission, accused of extortion, is certainly not the best encouragement for the new path of the important institution of the building of the Normans and represents a bad signal sent to the citizens – they say – The choice of Gennuso by the centre-right is totally inopportune and risks seriously undermining the credibility of the institution which must be entrusted to people above even the slightest suspicion”. The “Association that honors the memory of those killed in the fight against the mafia” agrees with them, according to which the Ars anti-mafia commission “cannot start its own business by pretending nothing has happened”.

In the evening, the president of the commission, Antonello Cracolici, takes his position: “After the inauguration which took place on Wednesday 7 December, and the election of the president, the two vice-presidents and the secretary, the regional Anti-Mafia commission will meet for the first time next week – he says – it will be at that time that the secretariat offices and the officials of the commission will have to verify the requisites foreseen by article 6 of the regulation of the same commission which identifies the cases of incompatibility for the members of the presidency office”. According to Cracolici, “if this news were confirmed, his condition would make him incompatible with the position of member of the commission’s bureau”.