FORTI CASE: MATTARELLA TO ASK OBAMA FOR THE PARDON

Italian Versione

di Edoardo Ullo

“The city council and the mayor are committed to activate any initiative aimed at protecting Enrico Forti and expressing the utmost solidarity from the city of Trento towards a fellow citizen who is unjustly detained in prison in Miami.”

This is the main clause that has been stated when the city council of Trento passed a motion unanimously to invite the Head of State, Sergio Mattarella to seek pardon for the Italian locked in Miami for 16 years, following an unfair trial.

Mayor Alessandro Andreatta and councillors pledged to formalize the request to the Italian President Sergio Mattarella, to honor his commitment during an upcoming State visit to the US to raise interest with the US President, Barack Obama regarding Forti’s case.

Furthermore, Andreatta will be engaging the assistance of foreign minister, Paolo Gentiloni and the Embassy of the United States of America in Rome.

Today, the possibility of reopening the case is entrusted to an American lawyer, Joe Tacopina, who is eager to free Chico Forti, but he is also aware it may be ‘mission impossible’ to expose the mistakes of the judicial system in the State of Florida, particularly in respect of their unjust sentencing of a non-citizen.

There is not objective evidence supporting the charge that Forti was either murderer or instigator of the murder of Australian, Dale Pike during his trip to Miami.

John Gale, a Miami judge is on record stating, “My court would never have considered a life sentence in this case, because the facts presented are not sufficient to justify a verdict so severe.”

Strong doubts have also emerged from the analysis of the investigation conducted by Italian magistrate, Lorenzo Matassa and criminologist Roberta Bruzzone, whose respective publications have impeached the prosecution of American justice in Miami, particularly in Forti’s case, where the system has repeatedly violated the main rules that guarantee the defense of the accused.

“The state does not have to prove that he is the shooter in order to prove that he is guilty”. These are the exact words of public prosecutor, Reid Rubin during the final indictment of the trial held in Miami (Florida), questioning the fundamental principle of American justice by which a person is considered innocent until he is proven guilty.

With regard to Forti, no concrete, reliable evidence has been produced and his conviction was the result of the feelings generated by the strategy that the prosecutor implemented during his closing argument. Thanks to the weak and inconsistent defense, it cleverly presented simple clues as evidence of guilt, which conditioned and misled the jury in its verdict.

THE JUDICIAL BACKGROUND
It all began in February, 1998, when Dale Pike, son of Anthony Pike – a hotelier who had declared himself the owner of Pike’s Hotel in Ibiza and was negotiating its sale with Forti, was found dead on the beach in Miami, Florida.

Chico Forti, entrepreneur and former wind-surfer, was accused of being an accomplice in the crime that was allegedly perpetrated as a result of an implied grudge that the Italian had against Anthony Pike. From this charge, however, Forti was acquitted and this should have invalidated the presumed motive for the crime. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2000.

From the very beginning, Forti has pleaded the victim of a miscarriage of justice and has presented several appeals for revision of the trial or cancellation of the finding, without success.

Unfortunately, the absurd sentence was the end of Chico Forti’s case; all the appeals he has made during these years have been rejected without any reason, including the last motion “Habeas Corpus” that was rejected by the Supreme Court of the United States as it was made “out of the time limit” by US lawyers.

THE SHADOW BEHIND the VERSACE MURDER case
This story is also intertwined with the murder case of fashion designer Gianni Versace on 15 July 1997.

This murder took place in Miami, but Italy has never opened a file for it. Chico Forti had told this story in a documentary, impeaching the conduct of the Miami police.

With confidential information from Miami police officer, Gary Schiaffo and others including German, Thomas Knott, Forti had created a documentary-investigation about the Versace case, entitled “Il sorriso della Medusa” which leaves doubts about the suicide of Andrew Cunanan, alleged murderer of Gianni Versace.

In this video that was subsequently broadcast throughout Europe on the Italian TV channel Rai 3, Forti accuses the findings of Miami police and, three months later, Chico Forti ran into trouble with the Miami judicial system itself.

Before this incredible episode, Chico Forti was an international extreme sports documentary film-maker for “Hang Loose”, broadcast by the American channel ESPN.

Read more information relating to Forti’s case on an article dated Oct. 5, 2011 entitled: “The acquittal of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito”