Giuseppe Orsi, former number one of Finmeccanica, was sentenced to 4 years and six months in prison, while Bruno Spagnolini, and former CEO of the subsidiary Agusta Westland, received a sentence of 4 years. The allegations are of international corruption and false invoices. This was decided on Thursday by the second criminal section of the Milan Court of Appeal, aggravating the first instance sentence (both two years for false invoices, acquitted of charges of international corruption). The public prosecutor's office in Milan had asked for 6 years for Orsi and 5 for Spagnolini. The proceeding concerns an alleged bribe paid to Indian public officials to get Agusta Westland to obtain a 556 million euro order for 12 AW101 helicopters in the Asian country.
The appeal judges reduced the provisional amount due from the Revenue Agency from 1,5 million euros to 300 thousand euros while they confirmed the total confiscation of 7,5 million euros against both defendants. Furthermore, the crime of international corruption was reformulated from the article which provides that the crime was committed "for an act contrary to official duties" to that which concerns the accusation that the public official acted "in the exercise of his ”.
As regards the false invoices, the Milan Court of Appeal sentenced Orsi and Spagnolini for the years from 2008 to 2011 in relation to the contracts signed with the company Ids Tunisia for over 14 million euros. In detail, 1,2 million are disputed for 2008, 3,8 million for 2009, 4,4 million for 2010 and 4,8 million for 2011. The judges also revoked the suspension of the sentence, as had been established in the first instance, when the sentence was two years, because on appeal the sentence was beyond the limits.
According to the investigators' hypothesis, Agusta Westland, which before Spagnolini was led by Orsi, would have paid bribes to Indian officials to obtain the order for the helicopters from the government of the Asian country: in particular, Marshal Tyagi Sashi would have been corrupted , Chief of Staff of the Indian Air Force from 2004 to 2007, through payments to his family members. The story broke out on February 12, 2013, when two precautionary custody orders were carried out against Orsi (in prison) and Spagnolini (under house arrest), ordered by the investigating judge Luca Labianca, at the request of the prosecutor Eugenio Fusco, magistrate of the public prosecutor's office Milan who had acted as chief prosecutor in Busto Arsizio.
Orsi remained in prison for about 80 days, being released on May 4, 2013 due to the expiry of the terms, after the requests of his lawyers to release him or to mitigate the precautionary measure had always been rejected. At the time of his arrest, Orsi was in charge of Finmeccanica and had resigned in the following days with a letter sent from prison.
In detail, the accusation of international corruption concerns the alleged payment of bribes to Indian officials to modify the technical chapter of the tender notice, so as to allow the victory of the Italian company, while the accusation of false invoices, however, concerns a round of alleged invoices for non-existent transactions, which would have covered the payment of bribes.
According to the reconstruction of the investigators, fictitious engineering contracts were created with two companies, one Indian and one Tunisian (Ids India and Ids Tunisia) for "the 3D digitization of other helicopters". The money would then be passed in several steps through intermediaries and trustees located in Mauritius, ending up in Singapore and reaching its final destinations.
In the first instance, Orsi and Spagnolini were sentenced by the court of Busto Arsizio to two years (suspended sentence) for the crime of false invoices (for the years 2009-2010) and acquitted of that of international corruption "because the fact does not exist". Today, in the second instance the judges of the second section have "partially reformed" the first instance sentence, condemning Orsi and Spagnolini - both present in the courtroom to read the ruling - also for the crime of international corruption (however modifying the case) and confirming the sentence for false invoices from 2008 to 2011 for contracts with Ids Tunisia for a total of around 14 million euros. The reasons for the sentence will be published in 15 days.
"This sentence is inexplicable", commented the lawyer Ennio Amodio, Orsi's defender together with Novella Galantini, arguing that the second degree sentence "will be overturned in Cassation".
