Appeal trial for Ciro Grillo, the proceedings in Sassari will be behind closed doors

The appeal trial opened today, Thursday 12 November, in Sassari in which Ciro Grillo, son of Beppe Grillo, is accused, together with his friends Edoardo Capitta, Vittorio Lauria and Francesco Corsiglia, convicted in the first instance by the Court of Tempio Pausania for group sexual violence against an Italian-Norwegian student in the summer of 2019 in Porto Cervo. The judges, after three hours of deliberation, decided to accept the request of the civil parties to have the ceremony held behind closed doors: journalists will not be able to attend the hearings of the appeal process. Next hearing on 10 February 2027. The Court will have to resolve two preliminary objections presented with the defense's appeals: the nullity of the first instance sentence because the signature of the third drafting judge is missing and the violation of the Cartabia Law. According to the defense lawyers, in fact, the first degree sentence must be redone.

The defenders ask for the sentence to be declared null and void

The legal team of Grillo, Capitta, Lauria and Corsiglia highlights how the first instance sentence was signed only by the president "and only one of the two judges indicated as drafters". According to the lawyers, "the failure to sign a drafter determines a vulnerability which cannot be degraded to a mere irregularity but which determines the nullity of the sentence which must be returned to the Court of Tempio Pausania for the renewal of the null document". The defenders therefore ask that the sentence be rewritten.

What could happen

It is the appeal judges who examine these objections. This is, among other things, an unprecedented case in jurisprudence: all three judges of the panel, chaired by Marco Contu and also composed of Marcella Pinna and Alessandro Cossu, were the drafters, actively taking part in the drafting of the sentence of over 72 pages. But there are only two signatures. Cossu would be missing, transferred to Asti a few weeks before the last hearing in Tempio Pausania. The appeal judges must ask Cossu to add the missing signature. In the event that this does not happen, the magistrates of Sassari could consider its annulment.

The story

Six years after the affair, in September 2025, the first instance sentence sentenced Grillo, Lauria and Capitta to eight years and Corsiglia to six years and six months, the latter found guilty only of sexual violence, but not of group violence. The public prosecutor Gregorio Capasso had asked for a nine-year sentence for everyone.