Former prosecutor Venditti: 'I answered all the questions, I'm saddened'

A face-to-face meeting that lasted over three hours in which he answered all the questions, without hesitation, and without leaving out any details. The former acting prosecutor of Pavia, Mario Venditti, was heard as a witness in the investigation forwarded by the prosecutors of Brescia to those of Pavia, after the dismissal of his position, and which concerns an alleged payment of money by Giuseppe Sempio to ensure that his son Andrea, in 2017, was exonerated and emerged innocent from the investigation into the murder of Chiara Poggi.

The investigation was then reopened and for which a trial has now been requested against the 38-year-old clerk who, interviewed by Porta a Porta, explained that "thank goodness that the request for indictment has finally arrived, nothing that we didn't expect. We hope to do everything as quickly as possible".

In front of the deputy prosecutor Stefano Civardi and the prosecutor Giuliana Rizza, Venditti, from the other side of what was once his desk, gave clarifications regarding the file in which the crime of corruption in judicial documents should have been reclassified as undue inducement.

Although the report was classified, it can be deduced that, among the topics touched on, there may have been those relating to his relations with the judicial police "squad", the reasons why he entrusted the investigations on Sempio to some of them and also a passage on the note drawn up and sent to him by the former Milan prosecutor Laura Barbaini who, a couple of years earlier, obtained the conviction of Alberto Stasi in the appeal trial bis.

At the end of his examination, the now retired former prosecutor, leaving his offices in Pavia, explained to reporters that "the climate was quite cordial and civil. I answered all the questions. The only regret is that this thing could have been done 14 months ago. I understand the needs of the investigation, of surprise actions, such as searches. However, if these clarifications had been asked of me at the time, I would have saved myself a lot of bitterness and would also have saved the entire judiciary the disgrace that then occurred".

With his lawyer, Domenico Aiello, who waited for him outside, alongside him, Venditti added that "it is clear that a prosecutor under investigation for corruption calls into question the entire judicial system". To those who asked him if anyone, at the time of the events, may have used his name to obtain money from the Sempio family, Venditti replied: "I cannot report what I said", without denying, however, that having returned to the office he occupied at the time "had an effect on me". After him, other witnesses are expected to be called in this line of investigation into the Garlasco crime which runs parallel to that which concerns the work of the Parma RIS in 2007.