Critics of alleged
disfunction in the snail-paced Italian judicial system are now
pointing to four Sardinian men who had to wait over 26 years for
an acquittal in a first-instance trial.
Alghero natives Salvatore Budruni, Giuseppe Ballone, Antonio
Martiri and Gervasio Madeddu were placed under investigation in
1991 as part of an inquiry into alleged drug trafficking with
possible charges of criminal association.
They were acquitted by a Sassari court in November 2017.
A year later, the Sassari section of the Cagliari Court of
Appeals ruled that the state will have to pay each of them 600
euros per year of the lengthy judicial ordeal (about 63,000
euros overall) that has ended just as the country is discussing
a reform of the judicial and trials system, with the government
considering the abolishment of statutes of limitations.
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