Mariangela Sandrone, wife of Mario Roggero, is asking for clemency for her husband by addressing President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella through the pages of the daily newspaper La Stampa, on newsstands today. "To President Mattarella," Sandrone states in an exclusive interview with the newspaper, "I am appealing as a wife and as a mother, with the utmost respect for his role as head of state. I am only asking him to look beyond the trial documents, to consider Mario's age, the trauma he has suffered, and the fact that he is not a danger to society. I am asking for an act of clemency and humanity to allow an elderly man to spend the last years of his life with his family." "I feel suspended in a nightmare that has become reality," Mariangela Sandrone adds, emphasizing that "Mario is a man deeply devoted to his family, a tireless worker, a caring husband and grandfather. He is a person who has always put the protection of his loved ones above everything else. He is not the 'vigilante' that some describe him as."
Roggero family: 'In 2005 it was paternal instinct, not a punitive expedition'
Not a punitive expedition, but simply a paternal protective instinct. This is how the family of Mario Roggero, on the jeweller's social media channels, revisits the 2005 incident, referring to an altercation with one of his daughters' boyfriends, during which he drew a pistol and also threatened the young man's parents, for which he plea-bargained in 2007. In a post published yesterday evening and titled "A clarification from the Roggero family regarding the 2005 prior incident and the falsehoods written in recent days," the following can be read: "It is the very ruling of the Court of Assize of Appeal that states that the old prior incident from 2005 played no role in today's conviction. So why, today, are so many parties playing games with distortion, trampling on the truth, and at all costs trying to establish — against all evidence — the theory of a Mario who carried out a punitive expedition that never took place? When in fact it was a matter of paternal protective instinct?" the relatives state on social media. In the post, the family adds: "First of all, note this: it concerns an event that took place 21 years ago, that is, 16 years before the events at the centre of the trial that involved him. Secondly, it was an episode that has no connection whatsoever to the facts underlying today's conviction."
And furthermore: "Thirdly, that episode had already been examined in the first-degree trial against Mario before the Court of Assize of Appeal. It is all therefore already perfectly well known. Why insist on bringing it up now? We simply cannot understand the media clamour of these days; we cannot accept that Mario must suffer further public pillorying for a completely isolated episode that occurred 16 years earlier." Finally, the Roggero family emphasizes: "Fourthly," the incident itself "is very different from the reconstructions one reads even in authoritative newspapers," the post reads. "That night, the young man, who was dating one of Mario's daughters, did not simply slap her but struck her with punches that caused her injuries, followed by the terror of two attempts to run her over with his car, before abandoning her in the dark on an isolated road. Such an event cannot be dismissed as a simple quarrel between young people."
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