Nine jailed in Mondo di Mezzo probe

(ANSA) - Rome, October 23 - ROS security police in Rome in the night between Tuesday and Wednesday arrested nine people after the supreme court of Cassation on Tuesday ruled on the huge 'Mondo di Mezzo' (Middle World) corruption case.
    In the case of some of those arrested following the ruling, the new anti-corruption law 'Spazzacorrotti' (Sweep Away The Corrupt) was implemented, judicial sources said.
    The law introduces "measures targeting crimes against the public administration and on the transparency of parties and political movements".
    The Constitutional Court is due to rule on an appeal presented against the 'Spazzacorrotti' law.
    Meanwhile Cesare Placanica, the lawyer of former gangster and ex-member of the right-wing NAR terrorist group Massimo Carminati, said Wednesday that his client could have already served his prison term and it was "possible to demand his release".
    The Cassation on Tuesday reversed a lower court's verdict and ruled that the people convicted in the 'Mondo di Mezzo' corruption case were not guilty of mafia association. As a result the sentences of the two ringleaders of the gang, which got its hands on city contracts worth millions, ranging from the running of Roma and migrant camps to waste management and maintaining green areas, will have to be re-calculated.
    At the appeals level, Carminati was given a term of 14 years and six months.
    The term of leftwing cooperatives chief Salvatore Buzzi was 18 years, four months.
    The case was initially nicknamed 'Capital Mafia' after prosecutors said it regarded organized crime.
    In the first sentence, judges had said there were two separate criminal organisations in the case and they were not mafia-like in nature.
    But the appeals verdict said mafia association was involved, before the supreme court reversed that reversal.
    The ringleaders were caught on a wiretap saying they could make more on Roma and migrant camps than from drugs.
    Mondo di Mezzo refers to Carminati's nickname for the demi-monde he operated in.
    Some former members of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) were also involved in the 'Mondo di Mezzo' case and in February former centre-right Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno got six years for illegal financing corruption in a separate case linked to it.
    In Italy sentences do not usually become effective until the appeals process has been exhausted, at the third level of appeals, the Cassation Court.
    photo: Buzzi testifying on Carminati