Enac general director investigated for attempted extortion at Lampedusa Airport
A notice of conclusion of investigations, for attempted extortion, has been issued by the Agrigento Prosecutor’s Office against the director general of Enac, Alessio Quaranta, in relation to an investigation into the Lampedusa airport. There are 12 individuals under investigation in the case, which also involves alleged pressure on Gaetano Tafuri and Giovanni Amico, then president and director of the airport, who are the injured parties in the investigation into the management of the airport’s fuel depot.
The guarantee notice was signed by the Agrigento prosecutor, Giovanni Di Leo, and the substitute Rita Barbieri, as well as for Quaranta, for seven other individuals among national and local executives of the National Civil Aviation Authority: Fabio Marchiandi, Marco Di Giugno, Arianna Ciani, Gabriele Squillaci, Antonino Buttafuoco, Pietro Bonfiglio, and Gaetano Palmeri.
According to the accusation, the individuals under investigation, “with threats, carried out acts suitable” to “force Tafuri and Amico” to “illegally grant the management of the fuel depot to Giacomo Cusumano” at the Lampedusa airport, an area that was “already arbitrarily occupied by companies linked to Cusumano”, an entrepreneur who is among the recipients of the conclusion of the investigations. The depot over time would have “reached an extension of about 2,010 square meters, but – the Agrigento Prosecutor’s Office claims – based on illegitimate concession and extension provisions issued by Enac from February 6, 2004 to February 14, 2019.”
The defendants, the Prosecutor continues, allegedly used the “moral and material support of three legal consultants for Cusumano: Nunzio Pinelli Fumagalli, Giuseppe Pinelli, and Verona Petrella”, the wife of Marco Di Giugno, a director of the legal analysis and litigation department of Enac. The latter and Squillaci are also under investigation for disclosure of office secrets.
The injured parties in the investigation include Tafuri, Amico, Ast aeroservizi, the Sicilian Region, and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. “I do not rejoice in the misfortunes of others – Tafuri commented – but as a public administrator, I had the duty to turn to the judicial authority in view of what I have suffered. I only regret not having been listened to and probably believed by the Government of the time.”
According to the accusation, Enac’s defendants, in order to pressure Tafuri and Amico, would have “intentionally delayed the concession of the suitability certificate to Ast aeroservizi spa”, which manages the Lampedusa airport, based on “pretextual denial provisions”, which thus “prevented the concessionaire from directly carrying out the fuel supply activity” at the airport. But not only that, the Agrigento Prosecutor’s Office alleges: Di Giugno, in order to “maintain the management of the depot” for Cusumano, “also through his wife and the Pinelli lawyers”, would have “carried out an illicit political mediation” to “induce” the interlocutors to make “pressure on Tafuri” by presenting a “biased and tendentious representation of the situation”.
In April 2021, Di Giugno also allegedly threatened Tafuri over the phone that “in the absence of sub-concession to Nautilus, Enac would initiate the revocation procedure of the general concession to Ast aeroservizi.” And four months later, on August 4, 2021, the Prosecutor highlights, “Enac initiated the forfeiture procedure of the concession with a note signed by Dg Quaranta”, who on December 13 of the same year will sign “the proposal to revoke the concession of the management” of the airport.
Aeroporto di Lampedusa, indagato il direttore generale di Enac per tentata concussione
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