Randazzo: former mayor Sgroi is not eligible to run for office: the ruling from the Court of Cassation arrives

No overturn. The former mayor of Randazzo, Francesco Sgroi, will not be able to run. The news was highly anticipated considering that after the dissolution due to mafia infiltration on January 26, 2024, resulting from the investigations of the “Terra Bruciata” operation against the Sangani clan, the municipality at the foot of Mount Etna is preparing for the local elections on May 24. Now the electoral campaign can ignite with one certainty: Sgroi will not be able to enter the race.

The first civil section of the Cassation has indeed confirmed “the ineligibility” established by the Court of Appeal of Catania against not only the former mayor but also the former municipal councilor Nunzio Batturi. A ruling, issued in April 2025, that had overturned the decision made by the Tribunal, which had instead declared the two former officials “eligible.” But that verdict was appealed by the Viminale.

It should be noted that Sgroi has not faced any criminal repercussions. The Supreme Court has rejected the two appeals, deeming the reasons presented (6 for Sgroi and 5 for Batturi) unfounded or inadmissible. The Cassation considers the unified analysis of the second-degree judges to be correct. According to the Court, “the conduct” of the mayor (in office since 2018) would have “undermined the legality and impartiality of the administration and affected its credibility with the public, that is, the trust relationship of citizens towards the institution, compromised by phenomena of infiltration and conditioning attributable to the conduct of the administrators and was the cause of the ordered dissolution of the municipal council of Randazzo”. The Supreme Court, in fact, recalls that the application of “the electoral disqualification measure does not require that the conduct of the local authority administrator meets the elements of the crime of participation in a mafia association or external competition, as it is sufficient that he has been at fault in the mismanagement of public affairs, open to the interference and pressures of criminal associations operating in the territory”.