European court faults Italy’s rules for prosecuting Mafia outsiders

Italy violated a businessman’s rights by convicting him under unclear Mafia rules, the court found, over dissenters’ objections that he could have known his conduct was criminal.(CN) — Helping the Mafia without joining it landed Pietro Lo Sicco a seven-year sentence, but Europe’s rights court found Italy had left the rules too uncertain.The European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday that Italy violated the Palermo businessman’s rights because he could not reasonably have predicted his conviction when he acted. Lo Sicco challenged both the conviction and the confiscation of his property, seeking its return and at least 500,000 euros (about $558,400) for emotional harm.Italian judges found that Lo Sicco hired Mafia companies for his construction sites, bought supplies from clan-linked businesses and sought protection to settle disputes. He also voluntarily entered business ventures with Mafia figures. The domestic courts found his dealings strengthened Cosa Nostra, Sicily’s Mafia, even though he was not a member.He was convicted in 2000 for conduct dating back to 1980. Italy already prohibited Mafia membership and helping others commit crimes, but its highest criminal court had repeatedly disagreed over whether those rules could be combined to punish an outsider who supported the organization.Italy’s Court of Cassation settled that disagreement in its 1994 Demitry decision, recognizing that outsiders could be convicted on that basis. The European court nevertheless found that the offense remained insufficiently clear until that decision became publicly accessible. A later clarification could not make earlier conduct predictably punishable.The offense’s scope had also evolved. “In the court’s view, this could only have increased the uncertainty surrounding the legal framework at the time of the events,” the European court wrote in its French-language judgment.Italian courts must now establish when Demitry became accessible and whether the uncertainty affected all the conduct underlying Lo Sicco’s conviction. The European court did not decide his guilt or overturn the conviction.Dissenting judges Raffaele Sabato and Davor Derenčinović argued that Lo Sicco could have known helping the Mafia was punishable even if Italian judges disagreed over which crime to call it. Sabato said the majority had misread those earlier decisions, while Derenčinović warned that knowing conduct was criminal did not require knowing its precise legal label. Both called for the European court’s Grand Chamber to reconsider the case.Cosa Nostra’s reach into business has persisted alongside its history of violence. The organization killed magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in bombings in 1992. Decades later, a January 2025 Palermo investigation described suspected attempts to infiltrate businesses through extortion and cooperating entrepreneurs.Rebecca Bovatti, a researcher in organized crime studies at the University of Milan, said the judgment recognized that the offense rested on existing legislation, rather than being created by judges, while focusing on conflicting judicial interpretations. She distinguished the gradual clarification of a crime, which could meet human rights requirements, from conflicting decisions that made conviction unpredictable. “This distinction, however, remains not yet fully defined,” she said.Paola Maggio, a professor of criminal procedure at the University of Palermo, welcomed the finding that the uncertainty arose from conflicting court decisions, rather than Lo Sicco’s personal circumstances. She said this meant the legal uncertainty was not necessarily confined to one defendant, raising broader questions about others convicted under the same circumstances. Italian judges still had to determine how much of Lo Sicco’s conduct was affected.“It would be premature to anticipate the result,” she said.The European court identified setting aside the conviction or reopening proceedings as the most appropriate remedy, including for confiscation. It awarded 5,000 euros in legal costs but no separate payment for emotional harm, and found no need to decide the property complaint separately.Federico Cappelletti, a criminal defense lawyer at Cappelletti Law Firm in Venice and a member of the International Criminal Court’s list of counsel, said the ruling strengthened the case for reconsidering other final convictions affected by the same legal uncertainty.“The judgment does not automatically invalidate other final convictions,” Cappelletti said. Italy’s procedure for implementing European court judgments did not expressly extend to people who had not themselves obtained a favorable ruling, he explained.Maurizio de Stefano, Lo Sicco’s lawyer at his Rome practice, expected Italy’s Court of Cassation to overturn the conviction and send the case back to Palermo’s appeal court to reconsider the sentence and confiscated assets.He highlighted the practical importance of Italy’s 2022 procedural reform, which allows applicants to seek relief within 90 days of a European court judgment becoming final. The European court’s four-month filing deadline could obstruct fresh applications from other defendants, he cautioned.The judgment is not final. Either side has three months to request review by the European court’s Grand Chamber, subject to a screening panel’s approval. If neither applies, or the request is rejected, the ruling becomes final. Lo Sicco could then seek relief from Italy’s Court of Cassation — but Thursday’s victory alone does not erase his conviction or return his property.Courthouse News reporter Eunseo Hong is based in the Netherlands.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads