Cheating in the selection process. Someone waited outside his house

The journalist Francesco Vasta had written that half of those selected were relatives of members of the Etna School of Guides

A year after the publication of an article in which he had reported the details of a complaint for irregularities in the selection of candidates in the competition for guides for Etna (read here), the journalist Francesco Vasta di Meridionews discovered that someone, because of that article, had planned to “wait for him outside the house to attack him”.

He discovered this by reading the transcription of some wire-tapping conducted in the context of the Aetna investigation, carried out by the Public Prosecutor of Catania, on the management of services on the slopes of the Etna volcano. In the article, published on May 10th 2018, Francesco Vasta wrote, inter alia, that among the 19 admitted on the basis of physical endurance tests, “a dozen names corresponded to children or relatives of members of the Governing Council of the College”.

In December 2018, the judicial inquiry led to the arrest of the president of the company “Funivia dell‘Etna”, Francesco Russo Morosoli, and involved his closest collaborators and the senior staff of the Sicilian College of Guides, the body that organises the competitions and manages the profession.

The journalist declared that an intimidation will not stop his investigative activity into the business of tourism on Etna, a subject he has by now been dealing with for years. The Catania section of UNCI and some politicians have expressed solidarity.

THE WIRE TAPPING dealing with Vasta is dated May 14th 2018. It records Francesco Russo Morosoli speaking with two of his collaborators, also suspects, whilst discussing Vasta’s four part article entitled “the shadow of a parentopoli”.

The three admit the accuracy of the article and talk about the intention that some people, probably aspiring guides, had to wait for Vasta near his house because they were irritated by his article, and added that Vasta had not returned home, perhaps because someone had let it be known that they wanted to attack him. Russo Morosoli comments that, if he has not been found, evidently he was afraid and this is to be considered good news because it means that in the future he would have eased off his accusatory activity.

“Parentopoli”, that is the illicit favouritism for the relatives of the administrators and the managers of the company, is one of the principal strands of the Aetna investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Catania.

RDM (wt)