Caltanissetta – He claims to have been “mascarized” and “betrayed” by “slanderers” and to have “risked his life for the institutions”, he reiterates that he “never made a dossier” nor “never destroyed the pen drives” in his possession . Indeed, he claims to have “always fought the mafia”. Antonello Montante, the former anti-mafia icon, appears for the first time in the courtroom, since the day of his arrest three years ago. Shortly after nine in the morning he shows up, in a jacket and tie, with gel on his hair and a yellow folder in his hands to be questioned in the appeal process that sees him accused of criminal association aimed at corruption. In the first instance he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Today he lives in Asti where he is obliged to stay. He smiles, Montante. He stops to speak briefly with the journalists who are waiting for him at the entrance to the bunker room.
But after the first questions, from the files to the destroyed USB sticks thrown out of the window immediately after his arrest, he changes his attitude. Become dark in the face. And attack the magistrates. “I have been an instrument of the institutions, especially of the magistrates,” he says. But without naming names. He repeated several times that he was and still feels himself a “man of the institutions”. “I have always fought against the mafia”, he reiterated, speaking in particular of his “battle” against Cosa Nostra “in Serradifalco”, his hometown, “and against Vincenzo Arnone”, his wedding witness and considered boss of Serradifalco.
«I knew Vincenzo Arnone since we were children because we went to school together but at first I did not remember if the certificate of my marriage had been signed as a witness by him or by his father, Paolino. Only my schoolmates attended my wedding as it was a shotgun wedding and he was there too. I got married in a hurry at 17 and in the hustle and bustle of that day I couldn’t remember who, father and son, had signed. I have already reported these circumstances in an interrogation in 2011 to the Caltanissetta prosecutor’s office ».
“My first election to Confindustria was somehow wanted by the prosecutor of Palermo Messineo because after it was learned that I was about to become president I found bullets at the entrance to my house and he told me that, in the face of that fact, I shouldn’t have give in to blackmail and this kind of intimidation, ”the accused then said. “My action of legality was then always supported by the judiciary,” continued the former leader of Confindustria who cited among the magistrates who supported him the former prosecutor of Caltanissetta Sergio Lari and the ex Nisseno PG Roberto Scarpinato. there was an initiative – he continued – that was not agreed and supported by the judiciary. I integrated perfectly with the police, prefectures, police headquarters, but above all with the judicial authority ». And then again he mentions his relationship with the current president of the Sicilian Region Nello Musumeci: «Musumeci and the councilor Gaetano Armao until 2018 came to me to ask for directions on how to move and what to do in their political action. I therefore wondered about the reason for the constitution of a civil party of so many people who have been close to me starting from the Region to finish in Cicero (former president of IRAP ed) ». «For Cicero I tore my clothes and I don’t understand his fury against me. Every Monday afternoon he was at my house, everyone opposed him and I always defended him, I even made him have an escort. – he explained – I have spent myself for all the offices he has covered over time, even against the will of the leaders of the Region who did not want to know about him. But since I have always been convinced that he was a person worthy of trust and useful to the common cause, I had no qualms in supporting him and carrying him forward also in his appointment to the IRSAP ».
The former number 1 of Confidustria Sicilia then also spoke about Marco Venturi. “He was indicated by me for the appointment of Lombard councilor”. Marco Venturi is the entrepreneur who had resigned as technical councilor for Productive Activities in the Lombard government by sending all the papers to the Prosecutor’s Office. Venturi and Alfonso Cicero, who was heard today before Montante, are the key men in the investigation of the Dda of Caltanissetta which led to the arrest of Antonello Montante himself. Before the Anti-Mafia Commission, in 2016, Venturi declared that the former president of Confindustria Sicilia was “dangerous” inviting “politics to remove him”. And he revealed that Crocetta’s election was “the result of an agreement with Raffaele Lombardo”. “National politics must intervene as soon as possible to remove Montante from the presidency of the chamber of commerce, from Unioncamere and from all the institutional roles he holds, because it constitutes an alarming risk of conditioning for the institutions”, Venturi told the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission chaired by Rosy Bindi. The hearing had been classified at the time but was then declassified from secret to “free”.
Montante’s interrogation ended just before 8pm. It will continue tomorrow morning before the Court of Appeal of Caltanissetta.