Preliminary investigation judge Landoni did not validate the arrest of the administrator of the Telegram chat and the 'October 17 Movement' Instagram page. In the reasons, he noted that there are no serious indications of guilt in relation to the alleged crimes. In particular, according to the judge, the contents published by the researcher did not contain explicit references to the use of violence. The Prime Minister attacks the decision, Anm: "Disorganized attack"
Youssef Siher has been released. The investigating judge of Milan Tiziana Landoni decided not to validate the request for validation of the detention and the application of the precautionary measure in prison proposed by the prosecutor Francesca Crupi, head of the investigation with the prosecutor Marcello Viola, considering both the danger of repetition of the crime and the risk of escape to exist. The Italian researcher with Moroccan origins was arrested last Saturday night as administrator of the Telegram channel 'October 17 Movement' opened after two days of looting and devastation in Milan on charges of incitement to crime aggravated by the aim of terrorism and organized violence in public demonstrations. Prime Minister Giogia Meloni called the investigating judge's decision "shameful".
The investigating judge: Siher never suggested violent actions or crimes
In the order with which the investigating judge of Milan did not validate the detention and did not apply any precautionary measures for Siher, we read: "In the posts and in the press release referred to above, the suspect never envisages the use of violent actions or the adoption of other behaviors which constitute a crime, nor does he appear to have evoked the serious violence that occurred on 17 and 18 October 2026 (not even mentioned by him) as a model for implementing the forms of protest and collective mobilization proposed by him". The judge adds that "there are currently no serious indications of guilt against him".
"He limited himself to promoting a protest mobilization"
Landoni also explained that the administrator of the Telegram chat 'October 17 Movement', born after the devastation of the weekend in Milan, "has, in fact, limited himself to promoting a collective, 'conscious' mobilization of protest against current government policies, capable of involving the greatest number of people, with the aim of encouraging, as he expressly declared, the formation of a collective conscience". The suspect's reference to the mobilizations organized in France "is absolutely generic and there are no allusions to acts of violence or to the adoption of behaviors constituting a crime. Siher seems, rather, to recall the constancy and in general the activism that has characterized the French protest movements, without glorifying, in any way, the violent conduct carried out by some demonstrators".
"The aggravating circumstance of terrorism cannot be recognised"
According to Landoni, it cannot be argued that Siher's conduct "was aimed at exercising forms of coercion against top bodies of the institutions, nor that they were supported by the purpose of subverting the democratic order of the State". According to the judge, not only are there "no serious indications of guilt against the suspect", but "the disputed aggravating circumstance" of terrorism would not be recognisable. Siher's verbal actions "could not be considered such as to cause serious damage to the State (the offense potentially created by them does not appear to be necessarily of a necessarily macroscopic dimension), nor do they appear to have been carried out with the aim of intimidating the population, causing a profound and lasting disturbance in society as a whole, considering the same intentions expressed by him in the two press releases published within the Telegram group and the attempt to promote the formation of a collective conscience, also involving people not belonging to political realities".
Meloni: "A shameful decision on Siher from the investigating judge of Milan"
As anticipated, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in a video on social media defined the decision of the Milan investigating judge as "shameful". "I think - he added - that this is an unbearable mortification of the work of the police, of the investigators, of the Ministry of the Interior and in general of all those who work to defend respectable people from the risk of seeing their cities and their businesses devastated". "I really don't know how a normal state can defend respectable people in the face of these decisions of a certain judiciary", the Prime Minister continued. "I will say it bluntly - he added -: I consider the decision of the Milan investigating judge to not validate the arrest of Youssef Siher, accused of being the manager of the 'October 17 Movement' Telegram page, i.e. the page that incited the organization of those demonstrations which we later saw lead to the devastation of several businesses in Milan, to be shameful".
Anm: "Solidarity with Landoni, prime minister's reckless attack"
The response from the central executive council of the National Association of Magistrates (Anm) to the prime minister arrived quickly. "Our full solidarity with the investigating judge of Milan, the subject of a reckless attack by the president of the Council of Ministers. The decisions of the magistrates can be contested on the merits and challenged within the proceedings", reads the note. "The delegitimization of colleagues, even by those who hold the highest institutional positions, is instead a now common exercise of intimidation which should not belong to a rule of law. An unbearable exercise". Thus the "Autonomy and independence of the judiciary are two cornerstones of democracy - underlines the ANM - in which magistrates cannot be the enemy to be pointed out in every circumstance within the public debate. This behavior causes damage to the credibility of the institutions", concludes the ANM.
