Genoa Bridge. Autostrade asks for 50 journalists to be investigated

This has been disclosed by Il Fatto Quotidiano. Among the journalists are Ferruccio Sansa, Matteo Preve and Matteo Indice. The Autostrade company considers it as just a request.

On the 11th December 2018 the lawyers of the company Autostrade per l’Italia (Aspi) presented a complaint to the Public Prosecutor’s Genoa Office against persons unknown whom they declared have targeted them with a media campaign according to which the company would be found solely responsible for the collapse of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa which caused 43 deaths). Among other things, Aspi’s lawyers ask the magistrates to ascertain whether the authors of the 50 news articles published in the main national newspapers (including La Repubblica, La Stampa and Il Fatto Quotidiano) violated the confidentiality of an investigation by reporting information in statements made by some defendants during interrogations.

The articles, published between August the 14th 2018 (the day of the collapse), and the beginning of December 2018, are attached to their official complaint. A source has confirmed to Ossigeno that among the articles included in the complaint are those signed by the journalists Matteo Indice (La Stampa), Marco Preve (La Repubblica) and Ferruccio Sansa (Il Fatto Quotidiano).

The first to give notice of this action by Autostrade’s lawyers was Ferruccio Sansa, with an article published on December 21st 2018 in Il Fatto Quotidiano. Sansa wrote that the company was contesting the disclosure of confidential information.

In a reply to Ossigeno, he said, “In the face of a tragedy like the one in Genoa, with 43 deaths, which ended up in all the world newspapers, our duty to inform the public, which is trying to find those responsible, comes before any annoyance that the Autostrade company feels from seeing itself on the front page”.

On December 23rd 2018, the lawyers of the Autostrade Company, in a press release, affirmed that the complaint “does not contain any complaints against journalists who wrote about the legal proceedings relating to the investigation of the collapse of the Morandi Bridge, as it considers the freedom of press a fundamental pillar of our democracy “. The objective of the initiative – it added – “is instead simply to have confirmation from the Prosecutor of the veracity of the quotations of the interrogators of the suspects themselves that appeared in the press. This is for the protection of the rights of the suspects themselves. Any other interpretation is misleading and does not represent the intention of the defence attorneys of the suspects who presented the complaint”.

RDM