Sicily. Mayor sues over articles about the arrest of a former director appointed by him

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He complains that, in some news articles, his name is linked with that of the director of the municipal transport company

OSSIGENO April 27^th 2021 – On January 27^th 2021, the mayor of Trapani Giacomo Tranchida sued the journalists Aldo Virzì (director of Tvio), Giacomo Di Girolamo (director of Tp24.it) and Natale Salvo (blogger) for libel.

The mayor was reacting to some articles published in December 2020, on the occasion of the arrest of Salvatore Barone the sole administrator and president of Atm, the company that manages the local public transport service. The journalists had reconstructed that he had been appointed to that post by the mayor himself. The plaintiff found it defamatory that his name had been combined with that of the arrested individual and of a Mafia person mentioned in the articles, to which Barone is allegedly linked. The mayor also denies having defined Aldo Virzì as suffering from “delirium of omnipotence” and having invited him to “take a step back“.

Salvatore Barone was arrested in December 2020 on charges of association with the Mafia system. He was then released from prison for lack of substantial evidence.

Ossigeno has already reported on other cases of lawsuits and intimidation suffered by the blogger Natale Salvo. This latest complaint, Natale Salvo declared to Ossigeno, embitters him because he has limited himself to reporting the facts by exercising the right to report and keeping the serious accusations against the arrested administrator clearly distinct from the purely political responsibilities of the mayor who appointed him. .

Aldo Virzi and Giacomo di Girolamo declined to comment on the story.

Ossigeno hopes that the mayor withdraws the lawsuit and closes this unpleasant affair and with the request to publish some clarifications. Thus acting as it would have been preferable to have acted from the beginning, even in his own self-interest as a public official worried to see his name mentioned together with that of people accused of serious crimes and by clarifying the facts.

LT