RAVENNA – The Court of Ravenna acquitted Pier Luigi Bersani of the accusation of having defamed the general Roberto Vannaccilater elected European deputy for the League, with the epithet “idiot” uttered during an interview on stage at the Festa dell’Unità in Ravenna, on 1 September 2023.
The acquittal was pronounced “because the fact does not exist”. “I learned from the press” is Bersani’s comment in a post on social media where he reports on the Ravenna judge’s decision.
On the subject, as reported by Resto del Carlino, following Vannacci’s complaint, on February 27 the Ravenna Public Prosecutor’s Office had requested a criminal sentence for Bersani of a fine of 450 euros for aggravated defamation by the medium (as well as in front of hundreds of people, the interview was broadcast live on the Democratic Party’s YouTube channel), as criminal liability “could be considered proven based on the audio and video documentation” acquired by the Ravenna Digos.
the case
Defamed General Vannacci, criminal decree condemning Bersani. The dem: “I will face judgment”
The investigating judge Corrado Schiaretti, after a legal-grammatical examination, concluded that the Public Prosecutor’s request could not “be accepted due to its legal and even linguistic inexistence”. In particular, Bersani, in relation to Vannacci’s best-seller “The World Upside Down”, based his reasoning on a hypothetical ‘Italian bar’ and, interviewed by a journalist, asked this question: “But if in that bar it is possible call an abnormal homosexual, is it also possible to call a general an idiot?”
Specifically, according to the judge, Bersani’s words “cannot be qualified as metaphorical”, but what happened was that “the plaintiff confused the figure of metaphor with that of allegory”.
In other words, Bersani “describes a non-existent place where languages would be permitted in stark contrast to civil sensibility”. In other words, it is clear that, “once one knows the personal history and the irony that Bersani demonstrated in decades of his political career, the offensive phrase does not seem credible to the listener: a rhetorical device aimed at political irony in relation to the right Italian “.
Ultimately, the former PD secretary “wanted to highlight that, just as it is wrong to call a homosexual abnormal, it is equally wrong to call a general an idiot.” In 2021, the same investigating judge had dismissed the position of some escort agents of League leader Matteo Salvini accused of embezzlement and private violence in relation to a police jet ski ride to the son of the then Minister of Justice. Interior of the Papeete resort of Milano Marittima, on the coast of Ravenna.
