Saguto process, consultancy for teacher, former judicial administrator acquitted

Last Updated: December 13, 2023

The third section of the Palermo court, chaired by Fabrizio La Cascia, acquitted former judicial administrator Walter Virga – involved in the Saguto system trial and already cleared in October from any allegations – of charges regarding alleged irregularities in the assignment and management of a consultancy to a university professor of private law, Luca Nivarra. The trial against him also concerned a hypothesis of embezzlement, on which the professor obtained the application of the statute of limitations, together with lawyer Fabrizio Morabito. The judges accepted the arguments of lawyers Enrico Sorgi, Virga’s lawyer, Lillo Fiorello, who was representing Nivarra, and Giovanni Di Benedetto, Morabito’s defender. The trial also involved businessmen Rappa, represented by lawyer Raffaele Bonsignore, and the heirs of Bartolomeo Sapuppo, represented by lawyer Andrea Dell’Aira. Despite using a once-doubtful formula, now abolished, the judges used the formula of “the fact does not exist” in the case of Virga and Nivarra.