Underestimating the personal risks that Alma Shalabaleya, the wife of Kazakh dissident Mukhtar Ablyazov, and their 6-year-old daughter face in the process of repatriation to Kazakhstan, may have led to the confirmation of first-degree sentences for five people, including managers and state police officials employed at the Rome police station, who were accused in the appeal trial in Florence where the sentences were handed down.
The reason is estimated within 90 days. Meanwhile, on charges of kidnapping related to irregularities in expulsion procedures, the Florentine court maintained what the Perugia court had decided on October 14, 2020. And instead reversed the orientation of the judges of the Umbrian appeals court who released everyone on June 9, 2022. Hence, the sentences of 4 years in prison for the former heads of the capital’s flying squad and immigration office, Renato Cortese and Maurizio Improta, and traveling officials Luca Armeni and Francesco Stampacchia, as well as immigration office official Vincenzo Tramma, still waiting for the new Supreme Court. “A very difficult decision to take, but the right one. An extraordinary decision has been made, it is difficult” for the judges to “go against another official” of the Italian State – said Alma Shalabaleya, who was in the courtroom – Thank you to all the people who believed in me”. The mother and daughter were expelled from Italy in 2013, only to later return, in a very complicated process that then resulted in a judicial outcome that culminated today in the second appeal. Her lawyers Rosa Conti and Diana Iraci Borgia, party civil, has asked for punishment and compensation for damages, underlining that the Italian police violated their personal freedom compared to the first instance, the appeal partly reforms the ban on holding public office, which lasts forever to 5 years.
“State employees with an important curriculum have been convicted, I hope they can be acquitted” at the Supreme Court, commented Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, saying he respected the judge’s decision and expressed “personal closeness to the five convicted police managers”. Piantedosi spoke of “a very complex case – as shown by the acquittal of the Perugia appeals court and the request for acquittal by the Florence prosecutor – with unpredictable results. All this confirms how difficult it is for those who work for the safety of citizens to carry out their assigned tasks and meet expectations without taking personal risks”.
The second appeal hearing was held in Florence because Perugia only has one section of the appeals court. Prosecutor Florence Luigi Bocciolini, who asked for acquittal in his arraignment, was not in the courtroom because he had retired for several days. Present at the reading of the instrument was his colleague from the Attorney General’s Office, Sergio Affronte, who told the council: “Our office is impersonal: each Attorney General has his or her own autonomy.” On 28 May 2013 Alma Shalabayeva was stopped by police at a villa in Casalpalocco, near Rome, where officers were looking for her dissident husband. He was accused of having a fake passport and deported. She and her daughter were flown to Kazakhstan, but the expulsion was lifted on July 5 after Ablyazov appealed to Prime Minister Enrico Letta. The Rome prosecutor’s office opened an investigation which, due to its jurisdiction, was transferred to Perugia.
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