Overview
- The Tribunale di Pavia announced on Thursday that the gup Luigi Umberto Riganti will hold a preliminary hearing on Feb. 25 to decide whether to send Andrea Sempio to trial, dismiss the case, or order further investigative acts.
- Prosecutors from the Procura di Pavia, in a request signed by chief prosecutor Fabio Napoleone after closing their inquiry, accuse Sempio of a violent August 2007 killing that included repeated blows, dragging the victim to the cellar and at least 12 cranial and facial injuries, and allege the crime was committed with cruelty and abject motives.
- Sempio’s lawyers say they will ask the gup to suspend the hearing while they file a revision petition in Brescia for Alberto Stasi and may ask the judge to raise a constitutional issue about trying a second person for the same fact-reato.
- The defence also plans to challenge key forensic points cited by prosecutors, notably 'impronta numero 33' on the stairs which it says is not attributable to Sempio and may not be a bloody print, and will point to Sempio’s past, limited access to the house as context for the trace.
- The decision will test the balance between finality in criminal convictions and the scope for new prosecutions in long-running cases and could lead the gup either to stop the case, send Sempio to trial before the Corte d'assise, or order more evidence; the victim’s family has declined to join as civil parties.