Mario Roggero to remain in prison after court rejects sentence deferral

The Turin Surveillance Court has rejected a request to defer the prison sentence of Mario Roggero, a 72-year-old jeweler from Cuneo. Roggero is serving a final sentence of 14 years and nine months for killing two robbers and wounding a third during an assault on his shop in April 2021.

His defense attorney, Stefano Marcolini, had requested that the sentence be suspended while awaiting a decision from President Sergio Mattarella regarding a petition for clemency (grazia). Alternatively, the defense sought house arrest during this waiting period. The court denied these requests, noting that deferring a sentence due to a pardon request is a residual legal possibility with very few precedents.

The judges stated that granting such a request would require an evident ‘fumus boni iuris’ (appearance of good law) to avoid an “almost disrespectful intrusion” into the exclusive prerogative of the Head of State. The court also noted the complexity of the case: while self-defense was legally excluded, the court acknowledged that a victim of aggression cannot be judged with the “precision of a pharmacist’s scale” due to potential emotional shock.

Roggero remains detained at Bollate prison. A similar hearing is scheduled to take place before the Milan Surveillance Court on September 16.