Italy’s League party leader, Matteo Salvini, called attention to a radical pro-migrant judge who sentenced a jeweler to 13 years in prison for defending himself during a robbery.
Salvini published a video allegedly showing the judge, Iolanda Apostolico, at a radical pro-migrant demonstration on Aug. 25, 2018, where she was seen with radical leftists demanding immigrants be allowed off the boats at the port of Catania.
“I am sure I recognize the Apostolico magistrate, who was at the Catania port during the far-left demonstration. The crowd shouted ‘murderers’ and ‘animals’ in the faces of the police to demand the disembarkation of the immigrants from Diciotti. Can you prove me wrong?” Salvini wrote on X.
Four years ago, Apostolico drafted and signed the sentence for Guido Gianni, the jeweler who killed two thieves who entered his store and whose claim of self-defense Salvini repeatedly supported.
On Feb. 18, 2008, in Italy’s Catania, Guido Gianni’s jewelry store was attacked by armed robbers. One of them took Gianni’s wife hostage, pinned her to the ground, and threatened her with a gun while his accomplices tried to empty the store. Gianni, armed with a legally owned Beretta pistol, fought back. He struggled against the assailants and opened fire, killing two thieves and wounding the third. The prosecutor in the case contended that the men were already fleeing when the fatal shots were fired.
Eleven years later, the Catania Assize Court sentenced him to 13 years in prison, a decision Salvini labeled “shameful” and unfair. “I am on the side of those who defend themselves, always,” the League leader said at the time.
After the video was released, League MEP Susanna Ceccardi stated: “At that time, the name of the judge did not say anything to me. Today, however, it says something: Namely that the same magistrate who freed four migrants is the same one who shared No Borders campaigns and petitions against Salvini, and who had in her hands the power to deprive a father of a family of his freedom. I wonder: Why did she not apply to Gianni the justification of self-defense?”
Apostolico claimed that she had “never written any sentence conditioned by my (left-wing) ideas.” MEP Ceccardi, however, in light of the reports that have emerged about the judge’s leftist sympathies, questioned the conviction of Gianii while speaking with Nicolaporro.it.
“Was Guido Gianni’s sentence an impartial one?” she asked. “I don’t want to think that that was a political ruling because here we are talking about a person in prison for 12 years and a family on the breadline because of legal fees. Was it an impartial ruling? That’s certainly what Guido Gianni is wondering, and I think many Italians as well.”