Andrea Sempio goes from being investigated to being accused: the request for indictment against the 38-year-old clerk accused by the Pavia Prosecutor's Office of having killed Chiara Poggi, and not Alberto Stasi, was expected and expected.
Closing the circle of the new investigation, which amidst twists, controversies and constant media pounding with TV shows broadcast continuously for a year and a half, was a statement sent mid-afternoon by the prosecutor Fabio Napoleone. In which the head of the prosecutors stated that the request for Sempio's trial had just been forwarded.
The reply from Chiara's brother's friend was immediate: I am "ready to also face this phase of the proceedings before the preliminary hearing judge", I am "convinced that my "innocence" will be proven". The Pavia prosecutors, after having also evaluated the latest consultancies filed by the lawyers of the clerk of a telephone shop, the lawyers Liborio Cataliotti and Angela Taccia, did not take a step back.
They did not change the blame already formulated with the first and second closure of the investigation: multi-aggravated voluntary homicide. Sempio would have "acted with cruelty towards the victim in consideration of the brutality of the murderous action due to the number and extent of the wounds inflicted", of which "at least 12 lesions on the skull and face". And he would have "committed the act for abject reasons, attributable to hatred" for the young woman, who was 26 years old, due to a "rejection" of his approach.
The Prosecutor's Office did not even change the reconstruction of the attack: Sempio, then just over 18 and often a guest at the Poggi house, that midsummer morning, while his friend Marco and his parents were on holiday in Trentino, it is not known how he would have entered the house in Via Pascoli. After an "initial scuffle - it is written in the indictment - he repeatedly hit the victim with a blunt instrument first" on the forehead and then on the right cheekbone "making her fall to the ground".
Then, "he dragged her" to the "access door to the cellar and, after" Chiara "tried to react by getting down on all fours, he hit her again with at least 3-4 blows" to the head and face, "making her lose consciousness". Finally, he "pushed the body" of the girl "making it slide down the stairs leading to the cellar". Although the 26-year-old "was already unconscious, he hit her with at least 4-5 blows" on the back of the skull, causing her death.
An accusation of murder based on around twenty elements collected and reread by investigators and detectives, including the DNA extrapolated from the victim's nails, compatible with the paternal line of the Sempio family, and his palm print, according to the advice of the prosecutors' experts, on a wall close to where Chiara's lifeless body was found. A painting that exonerates her then boyfriend and the only one convicted of the crime.
With the rewriting of the case, Stasi, who is finishing serving 16 years of imprisonment, is now aiming again at a request for review of the trial, after the Court of Appeal of Brescia rejected two of them. It should be submitted by mid-November. The Milan Attorney General's Office, however, has not released its reservation on this point. While the Poggis, convinced that the truth is that written in the final sentence, also for technical reasons will not join civil parties.
Andrea Sempio's lawyers, explained Cataliotti, are "absolutely ready to face these charges starting from the procedural issues and moving through the requests for evidence and finally the merits". The request for indictment, he added, "does not surprise us either from the point of view of the timing or from the point of view of the legal-criminal qualification of the facts", already contained in the investigation conclusion document. Now the word will pass to the preliminary hearing judge and there will immediately be an obstacle to overcome: the defense's request for suspension of the proceedings and, if necessary, the proposal of a question of constitutional legitimacy to the Consulta, since, for the defenders, everything must remain at a standstill while waiting for the review judgment on Alberto Stasi to be defined.
Stasi's defense: 'Sempio's lawyers should defend him and not attack Alberto'
"Without prejudice to the presumption of innocence and the inalienable right of defense of the accused, it is hoped that, once the trial has now begun, the energies will be directed towards defending the latter's position and that alternative paths will not be sought, once again attacking the person of Alberto Stasi, as happened recently on aspects which have no basis or connection with the murder charged today to Sempio: any attempt in this sense, in addition to being useless, will, from now on, find forward, a firm response from the Stasi defense." It is a passage from a note from Stasi's lawyers, Bocellari and De Rensis.
