Anomalies but not crimes that can stand up in a trial. Thus, after the arrests in the summer of 2025 which were then rejected by the Review and the Court of Cassation, and the entries of a certain weight in the register of suspects, the Milan Prosecutor's Office requests the dismissal of 16 people at the center of a strand of the maxi investigation into the management of urban planning.
And this is because that "system" of "wild building speculation", which remained "undisturbed" for years and which changed the city's skyline, although it was characterized by "conflicts of interest" and unusual "relationships (not only economic)" between real estate developers and financial groups and public officials "evaluators of the same building initiatives", does not have characteristics which, based on the regulations passed in recent years, can be considered illicit. Or such as to suggest a "reasonable expectation of conviction". In sixteen pages the prosecutors asked the investigating judge to archive the chapter of investigation on the events linked to the urban regeneration plan, which concerned, among others, the mayor Giuseppe Sala, the architect Stefano Boeri, the former councilor Giancarlo Tancredi, the CEO of Coima Manfredi Catella, the manager Federico Pella, the entrepreneur Andrea Bezziccheri and the former president and former member of the landscape commission of Palazzo Marino, Giuseppe Marinoni and Alessandro Scandurra. Except Sala and Boeri, at the end of July 2025 everyone was placed under house arrest, except Bezziccheri who ended up in prison.
"It is difficult for those who do not directly experience these situations to imagine the bitterness they leave, especially when they are aware that they have only done their duty - commented Sala -. But those who dedicate themselves to the public interest must, unfortunately, be ready to pay this price". It is "the epilogue of a legal case which, for over a year, has subjected the Company and its people to one of the most demanding tests that an organization can face, both on a professional and human level", explained the CEO of Coima, underlining that now "we are turning the page strengthened".
Scandurra, however, defended by the lawyer Giacomo Lunghini, pointed out: "It is not possible to restore a year of life, nor to cancel what has happened with a request to dismiss. I am not looking for revenge, but I believe it is necessary to ask a question: who is responsible for the economic, professional and human damage that all this has produced? Who returns what has been lost?". For the lawyers Andrea Soliani and Francesco De Luca, who are assisting Bezziccheri, the dismissal was "a necessary act, which unfortunately does not erase the indelible traces left by an unjustified restriction of freedom measure".
What determined the choice of the prosecutors of the office led by Marcello Viola were the measures of the judges of the Freedom and the Supreme Court, who a year ago eliminated the arrests and canceled the hypotheses of corruption, undue inducement and forgery. Accusations formulated by the same magistrates and by the then deputy, now retired, Tiziana Siciliano and which concerned a series of projects: from the Pirellino - with the well-known "warning" of Boeri, who with Catella, the prosecutors claimed, would have exerted alleged pressure, through contacts with Tancredi and Sala, so that the operation, which then failed, would go through with the favorable opinion of the Landscape Commission - to the unfinished Torre Futura, from the Bastioni di Porta Nuova to Goccia-Bovisa, up to the study on metropolitan "nodes".
While the investigations and trials will continue on the front of building abuses, illegal subdivisions and also auction rigging and the companies, including Coima, will be directly dismissed, the word now passes to the investigating judge. He will have to evaluate the request for dismissal which, barring any twists and turns, should close this chapter as, according to the Prosecutor's Office, there is "a lack of evidence" of an alleged subservience of public officials to financial groups and real estate developers in exchange for "undue advantages", such as consultancy or design contracts which are found to be "lawful", as they are professional and regularly paid activities. And "subsequent investigative developments" have not "brought forth different or further evidence" to prove the contrary or to support the accusations before a Court.
