Monza. Judgment overturned. Former mayor to pay legal expenses to “l’Espresso”

Giacinto Mariani had cited Fabrizio Gatti and the newspaper for an article on the infiltration of the Casalesi clan in the in Brianza province. In the first degree he had won

Four years after the events, on November 15, 2017 the Court of Appeal of Milan (sentence 5022/2017) rejected the claim for damages brought by the former mayor of Monza, Giacinto Mariani, against the journalist Fabrizio Gatti, and the former chief editor of the weekly L’Espresso and the publisher, for the article “In Brianza between Lega and clan”, published on 22 April 2013, on the criminal infiltration of the Casalesi clan in Northern Italy and its relations with politics.

The mayor had requested 400 thousand euro of damages (read). In the first degree, the Civil Court of Monza had sided with him, but reducing the compensation due to 30 thousand euro. But now the judges of the second civil section of the Court of Appeal ruled that those news were true and published in compliance with the requirement of countenance, and therefore not defamatory. They also decided that Mariani pay the court costs (estimated at around 25 thousand euros) and the ancillary costs and return the compensation that had already been obtained in execution of the sentence of the first degree.

MF (gt)

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