Andrea Sempio is more "relieved" after the closure of the investigations by the Pavia prosecutor's office which pointed him out as being responsible for the murder of Chiara Poggi and exonerated Alberto Stasi, although he was definitively sentenced to 16 years for the crime: "I don't think there are any arguments capable of leading to a real trial. If it happens that we have to go to trial, that is, to arrive at a real trial, we will face it", he tells Quarto's microphones Grade.
A few days after the new deposit of papers, in addition to hoping that the time has really come to get out of "this chaos of suppositions" and "invented leads", Sempio therefore states that he has nothing to fear from the evidence gathered against him, starting from footprint 33, which according to the Pavia prosecutors and the carabinieri is the signature he left on the wall of the stairs leading to the cellar of the Poggi house, not far from the lifeless body of the young woman. "We don't need to know what might not be or what can't be ruled out. You have to be certain. Was there a trace on the wall? Yes. Has it been analysed? Yes. Was there blood? No. The end. As I see it, the question ends there", he underlines.
The 38-year-old clerk, among other things, also spends a few words on the advice given to the prosecutors by Cristina Cattaneo, a forensic pathologist and medical anthropologist among the most well-known and respected in Italy: according to the expert, his foot could have fit the shoe that left the famous bloody dot print on the floor of the house in Via Pascoli in Garlasco.
"If you had found at Andrea Sempio's house - he says, speaking in the third person - a shoe that can be traced back to that one, perhaps stained with Chiara's blood, that's one thing. But as long as you say 'it's compatible', it's fine. You don't have a real element that connects that". And he doesn't hesitate about his foot size: "I had a 44 at the time and I still have it today." Meanwhile, he is suffering "the effect of social media" and "has begun to report some slightly more serious attacks". There is also a comment on Stasi: "I think it was Alberto, I think the conviction was well founded". But if there was "really a mistake", he adds, "obviously it is a tragedy".
And it is precisely the possible error on the question of DNA on the pedals that continues to cause discussion. With the Milan prosecutor's office busy evaluating the new documents sent by the Pavia investigators, in view of a possible request for review on which, for now, the prosecutor has not yet released the reservation, Professor Francesco Maria Avato, at the time leading the pool of consultants appointed by the former Bocconi student, intervened. The university professor, when asked about the question of that test which 19 years ago led to the unvalidated arrest of Stasi, explained that he had never been made aware of the two "null" results obtained by the Parma Ris on 20 September 2007, after the analyzes had returned Chiara's genetic profile the previous day: "This should invalidate everything - he explained -. On the basis of that trace, which is now unconfirmed, not only can we reiterate that it was not blood, but also that there is no presence of DNA" of the victim. He too, like the current experts appointed by Stasi, believes the hypothesis of an "exchange" of samples is plausible: that relating to the bicycle pedals with that carried out on the teaspoon used by Chiara Poggi for breakfast.
Finally, Avato pointed out that when faced with "huge discrepancies" like that one, "the analyzes had to be repeated" and that "especially the magistrate" should have been notified about that "anomaly". It is not that one can "select the results of the analyzes for my own use - he concluded - but cross-examination between the parties is necessary to agree on further control and verification procedures".
