Definitely acquitted. Thus ended the trial of the psychotherapist of the so-called ” Bibbiano case ” Claudio Foti on the alleged illicit foster care in the Val d'Enza area of Reggio Emilia. The Supreme Court of Cassation, fifth criminal section, with a sentence issued in the evening, in summary judgment, declared the appeals of the Attorney General of Bologna and the accused inadmissible, with the consequent irrevocability of the sentence of acquittal on appeal for the crimes of abuse of office, for not having committed the crime, and of serious injuries because the crime does not exist.
The sentence, one of those that can leave a mark, comes while the ordinary trial is still underway in the Reggio Emilia court which sees 17 defendants in the dock, including the mayor of Bibbiano Andrea Carletti. Foti had been sentenced to four years in first instance, by the Court of Reggio Emilia in 2021, for abuse of office and serious malicious injury. He was then acquitted in the second degree by the Court of Appeal of Bologna last year. And now the end word, for one of the cases that has caused the most discussion in politics, since the case exploded in the summer of 2019, with the arrest of the mayor of the Democratic Party.
A sentence that can truly be decisive, given that the crime of abuse of office accused of Foti had been committed, according to the prosecution, precisely in collaboration with the mayor of Bibbiano Andrea Carletti, in relation to the assignment without tender to his association Hansel & Gretel, of the psychotherapy service in the Val d'Enza Union. The injuries instead concerned the alleged psychological damage suffered by a very young patient: anxiety, depression and other disorders caused, according to the accusation, by the sessions in which she had participated. According to the reconstructions, Foti had created in her the belief that she had suffered sexual abuse from her father, by subjecting her to the EMDR technique, the controversial “memory machine”, “in total violation of the reference protocols”. But today everything changes.
«Today the Supreme Court of Cassation put an end to the most sensational media-political-judicial legend of recent years – declared Luca Bauccio, defender of the psychotherapist – with the definitive acquittal of Claudio Foti, a monstrous mud machine built for purposes that did not have nothing to do with minors and justice.”
And again: «Claudio Foti was subjected to a ruthless media pillory and was accused on the basis of technical advice that was completely devoid of scientific basis and judged to be unreliable. There was no link between his psychotherapy and a girl's alleged illness. And the diagnosis of the disease had been made without respecting the most basic rules. It took years of battles but now we can say we are satisfied, justice has been done. Now we will have to rebuild a life and a profession overwhelmed by a profoundly unjust and unmotivated accusation.”
Foti himself was present at the hearing in Cassation and declared emotionally: «I finally feel freed from an enormous burden. They were difficult years in which I had to fight against the injustice of an accusation that had no basis. In recent years I have been overwhelmed by a merciless pillory. I am grateful to the judges of the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court who were able to recognize the serious error. Now it's time to start again.”
Bibbiano case, psychotherapist Foti acquitted on appeal: this is how the castle of accusations fell
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