Italian court acquits 11 in Capua aerospace procurement case

The Court of Santa Maria Capua Vetere sentenced all eleven defendants to acquittal in the trial over alleged rigged contracts at the Centre of Aeronautical Research of Capua (Cira). Judge Rosetta Stravino presided and found that wiretap recordings used as evidence were declared unusable, a ruling upheld by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.

Those cleared included entrepreneur Sergio Orsi, Cira employees Carlo Russo, Vincenzo Filomena and Francesco Pirozzi, former local councilor Amedeo Grassia, and several businessmen linked to the Orsi family. The prosecution’s claim that Orsi had bribed Cira staff to favor his companies could not be examined because the intercepted phone calls lacked proper authorisation, ending the case before reaching the substantive merits.