Cilento: lawsuits – 2 reporters acquitted after eight years

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The journalists are Maurizio Troccoli and Luigi Martino (giornaledelcilento.it ). For the Court of Vallo della Lucania “there is no evidence”.

The legal process that saw journalists Maurizio Troccoli and Luigi Martino (respectively former editor and chief editor of il Giornedelcilento.it), accused of libel for having used the terms “clique” and “loan sharks” in several articles ends well after eight years. On February 19^th 2020 the Court of Vallo della Lucania acquitted them because “there is no evidence”.

THE FACTS – The disputed articles date back to 2012 and report on a judicial investigation into an alleged criminal association aimed at usury, for which some individuals from Cilento had been arrested and indicted. Those arrested had sued the journalists.

THE COMMENT – “It is an affair that has finally ended – the two journalists commented to the Giornaledelcilento and we thank our lawyer Marco Sansone. In our defence we pleaded that our duty to inform be recognized as a civil battle, not addressed only to us as journalists, but to the public for their incontrovertible right to know “.

THE PROCESS – The General Prosecutor of Vallo della Lucania had already acquitted the two journalists and the publisher Mario Scarpitta for several articles containing the words “clique” and “loan sharks”, maintaining that they were two terms “belonging to common jargon”. For one of those articles, however, the journalists had been indicted in 2016 (read here). A few days ago the court decision provided the final epilogue to the story.

Ossigeno has followed the affair from the very beginning, immediately after the lawsuit was launched.