(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 18 - Former centre-right Rome mayor Gianni
Alemanno got a suspended sentence of one year and 10 months in
jail Friday for influence peddling and illegal party funding in
one branch of the sprawling political-business racketeering case
in the Italian capital dubbed 'Mondo di Mezzo ('Middle World').
Alemanno, who will be 64 next month, is former hard right
politician who was Rome mayor for Silvio Berlusconi's
now-defunct centre-right People of Freedom party from 2008 to
2013.
He voiced "bitterness over an unjust sentence" and said he would
appeal to the supreme court, which had sent the case back to the
second appeals level after quashing a former acquittal of the
former official.
In March last year former rightist NAR militant and ex-gangster
Massimo Carminati was given a 10-year term in the second appeals
trial in the massive Rome corruption case while fellow
ringleader and former leftwing cooperatives kingpin and
well-connected political operator Salvatore Buzzi got 12 years,
10 months.
The case was initially dubbed 'Mafia Capitale' because
prosecutors said the affair, in which a gang got its hands on
city contracts worth millions, ranging from the running of Roma
and migrant camps to waste management and maintaining green
areas, regarded organized crime.
But the supreme Cassation Court quashed mafia convictions in
2019 and ordered an appeals court to reset jail terms in the
case.
Carminati and Buzzi were given terms of 14 years
and 18 years, four month in the first appeal trial.
Buzzi and Carminati were released from house arrest and jail
respectively in summer 2020 after a judge ruled that the
maximum amount of time they could be deprived of their freedom
before a definitive verdict on their case had run out.
'Middle World' refers to Carminati's nickname for the demi-monde
of politicians, white-collar workers and criminals he operated
in. (ANSA).