The punch to Maria Grazia Mazzola also regarded as a Mafia-style offence

The decision was taken by the Bari prosecutor, Lidia Giorgio and refers to the attack on the RAI correspondent on the 9th February 2018 in Bari.

The Bari prosecutor charged the wife of the clan boss who attacked and threatened the RAI correspondent Maria Grazia Mazzola with personal injury aggravated by its MMafia-style method. The reporter was simply asking some questions for her article.

On the 16th November 2018 the deputy prosecutor of the Bari Anti-Mafia Directorate, Lidia Giorgio, charged Monica Laera, wife of the Mafia boss Lorenzo Caldarola (considered one of the top members of the Strisciuglio clan) with the offences of personal injury and serious threats aggravated by their Mafia-style method. This became evident from the conclusions of the preliminary investigations into the attack suffered, on the 9th February 2018, in Bari, by the journalist Maria Grazia Mazzola. The Rai correspondent asked Laera some questions in front of the entrance to her home, in order to put together a reportage for the public television network. The 59-year old Angela Ladisa, Laera’s other mother-in-law was also charged with insulting a public official for insults directed at police officers attending the scene of the attack.

SOLIDARITY

Ossigeno per l’Informazione restates its complete solidarity with Maria Grazia Mazzola and maintains that an important fact, to be appreciated is the formal accusation of the aggravating factor due to the Mafia-style method in relation to this serious attack on a journalist doing her job. The decision of the Bari prosecutor confirms that in the Italian judiciary – and not just in some prosecutions but in all of them – there has been more determination last year in prosecuting the most serious attacks on journalists (Read the full comment of Ossigeno here).

The Roman Press Association – The secretary of the Roman Press Association (Associazione Stampa Romana), Lazzaro Pappagallo, commented: “The Prosecutor notes that the punch delivered by a member of the Laera-Caldarola clan belonging to the Strisciuglio and Mercante clans did not arise from an altercation or annoyance for an harassing question, but is precisely a practice of territorial control ‘. Lazzaro Pappagallo added that “The Public Prosecutor maintains that physical aggression (accompanied by this threat:” Hey, do not come here anymore or I’ll kill you “) was to serve as an example because in that area of Bari the intrusion of nosy journalists was not allowed”. – It reinforces what Maria Grazia Mazzola has always maintained in interviews and public statements. Our colleague suffered a real attack of Mafia gangsterism. The Roman Press Association denounces the working conditions of reporters engaged in a delicate job of reporting on areas controlled by criminal interests and offers trade union and legal support to the colleague from TG1 “.

FNSI and Usigrai – The union of Rai journalists (USIGRAI) and the National Federation of the Italian Press (FNSI), in a joint note, expressed their satisfaction with the solidarity shown by Rai to the journalist Maria Grazia Mazzola, underlining that, last February, when she was attacked, the company had not supported her. Fnsi and Usigrai hope “that the company will want to grant legal aid to all threatened colleagues, including those who have a freelance agreement with them. In the company’s response – they added – the silence was astonishing over Federico Ruffo ( see here ), perhaps due to their embarrassment at not being able to explain why he too, like tens of others still works without a formal journalist contract, like Daniele Piervincenzi and Edoardo Anselmi, beaten up in Ostia (in November 2017) while working for Rai. All of these journalists continue to work without being listed even among the company’s short term contract workers “.

ASP (wt)