Three men accused of threatening three Sicilian sisters who claimed to have been targeted by the local mafia have been acquitted due to lack of evidence.
The sisters claimed to be victims of the so-called “cattle mafia”, a group of mobsters accused of driving farmers from their lands with intimidation campaigns in order to obtain EU agricultural subsidies of up to €1,000 a hectare.
“We are saddened by this verdict,” said Ina Napoli, one of the three sisters. “We wonder if it is still better to denounce or if it is better to suffer in silence.”
Ina and her sisters Marianna and Irene, who own a farm in the town of Mezzojuso, in the province of Palermo, have filed more than 30 police complaints since 2014 alleging a long campaign of intimidation. The complaints have included allegations of illegal grazing that destroyed theircrop, two poisoning attacks on their dogs, the delivery of dozens of cow carcasses to their cottage and the destruction of two threshers.
The sisters’ land is thought to be worth €1m. Besides wheat fields, there is an artificial lake and a source of fresh water that could be used to produce bottled water. Before their father died, the farm returned an annual profit of about €35,000 from grain and hay production.
In 2018, three men were placed under investigation for extortion against the sisters and arrested. They were released a few weeks later. The case became well-known in Italy, with the sisters hailed as a symbol of the fight against the mafia.
“Today it is a little more difficult to trust the institutions,” Irene said. “However, we do not intend to give up.” The sisters said they would appeal.
Their lawyer Giorgio Bisagna said: “My clients have paid a high price to report this intimidation. Now they remain without justice and alone.”
The sisters’ recourse to the law isolated them in their community. Some of their neighbours asked them to withdraw the complaints to prevent the situation from worsening. “People no longer said hello to us; workers refused to come to work with us,” Ina said.
The lawyers representing the three men said they were “extremely satisfied with the judges’ decision”. They said the verdict had “finally put an end to a media nightmare and redeemed our clients from an unjust accusation”.
Over the years, Sicilian prosecutors have launched dozens of investigations against alleged members of the cattle mafia. In November, judges in Messina handed down prison sentences to 91 people, including alleged mafia members, after a large-scale EU agricultural subsidies fraud.
According to magistrates, mobsters fraudulently received more than €5m in subsidies between 2010 and 2017, including funds for thousands of hectares of “ghost” farmland in the east of Sicily that was either nonexistent, stolen from farmers or owned by the Italian state or regional government.
