Milan Province President Guido
Podestà was sentenced Friday to two years and nine months in
prison for rigging the 2010 regional elections in Lombardy in
favor of the now-defunct People of Freedom (PdL) party of
center-right ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi.
Podestà and four provincial councilors who are
co-defendants in the case were found guilty of padding a
petition with 926 false signatures to put centre-right incumbent
governor Roberto Formigoni and his PdL allies on the regional
ballot.
Formigoni, a PdL member from 2009-2013, was the governor of
Lombardy from 1995 to 2013 and has now joined the New Center
Right (NCD) party of Interior Minister Angelino Alfano.
"This trial has been a paradigm for the superficiality of
the prosecution's search for truth," said Podestà, who is now an
executive member of Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) party.
Prosecutors had requested a sentence of five years and
eight months for Podestà and terms ranging from four years to
four years and eight months for his co-defendants.
Civil plaintiffs sought one million euros in damages for
causing a "severe wound to democracy" by "secretly taking away
freedom of choice" in political representation.
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