The supreme Cassation Court has published the reasoning of a sentence in the trial against Italian MEP and Riace Mayor Mimmo Lucano and his migrant hosting model, upholding a sentence already issued by an appeals court in Reggio Calabria.
The supreme court of Cassation in Rome has rejected the appeals filed by the prosecution and the defense in the motivation of the sentence published on March 25 against the MEP Mimmo Lucano, who was re-elected mayor of the Calabrian town of Riace for a fourth term last June.
The case ended on February 12, when the Cassation confirmed the sentence issued by the appeals court of Reggio Calabria. In the decision, the supreme court upheld a suspended 18-month prison term against Lucano for making false declarations in public acts, making the sentence definitive.
The supreme court also rejected an appeal by prosecutors against the acquittal of Lucano, who earned fame for integrating migrants and repopulating the town of Riace according to the 'Riace Model', on other charges, including the crime of fraud against the State.
In its reasoning, the Cassation said the "appeal filed by the prosecutor general at the appeals court of Reggio Calabria is in part inadmissible because it is too generic and in part must be rejected because it was proposed for unfounded reasons."
It also said that another appeal filed on Lucano's behalf was also ""unfounded" and "in part generic", according to the sentence's reasoning published on March 25.
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18-month suspended sentence upheld
The appeals court of Reggio Calabria in October 2023 issued a suspended sentence of one and a half years on appeal as judges slashed Lucano's original term of over 13 years for irregularities involving immigrants.
Domenico 'Mimmo' Lucano, 66, settled 450 refugees in Riace, a town of 1,800 inhabitants, revitalising it and preventing the closure of the local school.
He came second in the 2010 World Mayor Competition and was named 40th in a Fortune poll of the world's greatest leaders in 2016.
Lucano had initially been charged with arranging marriages for citizenship but that charge was subsequently struck down.
However, he was convicted in a first instance court of a series of felonies regarding the management of migrants and asylum seekers and initially sentenced to 13 years and two months in jail in 2021 before the appeals court struck down nearly all those charges in 2023.
Lucano served as Riace mayor from 2004 to 2018 and was re-elected as mayor last year, when he also won a seat for the Green-Left Alliance in the European elections.