The renowned writer Italian anti-mafia Roberto Saviano was sentenced this Thursday by a Rome Court to pay 1,000 euros ($1,054) for having disgraced to the current prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, which he called “bastard.” The figure is well below the 75,000 that the president’s lawyer had requested and the 10,000 from the prosecutor’s office.
Saviano’s defense lawyer, Antonio Nobile, had requested acquittal “because the fact does not exist or does not constitute a crime” and announced that he will appeal this sentence.
“Losing today is an example of what will happen tomorrow, it leads even more to understand the situation we live in, with an executive branch that constantly tries to intimidate anyone who answers its lies. Today I am proud to have faced this trial“, this is how the writer Roberto Saviano expressed himself after leaving the court.
During the last hearing of this process that began after Meloni’s complaint, before becoming prime minister, the writer stated that this trial was born from “the words of criticism of those who have made fear and from cynicism its politics”.
Meloni’s lawyer, Luca Libra, pointed out that “bastard is not a criticism but always an insulteven in the dictionary it is always a derogatory term.