Judge acquits ‘Cattle Mafia’ men over intimidation of sisters

Three men accused of threatening three Sicilian sisters who claimed to be targeted by the local mafia have been acquitted by a judge owing to lack of evidence.

The sisters said they were victims of the Cattle Mafia, a group of mobsters accused of driving farmers from their lands with intimidation to obtain EU agricultural subsidies of up to €1,000 (£860) a hectare.

“We are saddened by this verdict,” said Ina Napoli, one of the sisters. She and her sisters, Marianna and Irene, own a farm in Mezzojuso, Palermo. They 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 their crop, two poisoning attacks on their dogs, the delivery of dozens of cow carcasses to their cottage and destruction of two threshers.

The sisters’ land is thought to be worth €1m. Before their father died the farm produced 36 tonnes of grain and several tonnes of hay with a total annual profit of about €35,000.

In 2018, three men placed under investigation for extortion against the sisters were arrested. They were released a few weeks later. “Today it is a little more difficult to trust the institutions. However we do not intend to give up,” Irene said.

The sister’s lawyer Giorgio Bisagna said: “My clients have paid a high price to report these intimidations. Now they remain without justice and alone.”

The sisters’ recourse to the law has isolated them in their community. Some of their neighbours asked them to withdraw their complaints to prevent the situation worsening. “People no longer said hello to us, workers refused to come to work with us,” Ina said.

Lawyers for the three men said the verdict had “finally put an end to a media nightmare and redeemed our clients from an unjust accusation”. The sisters said they would appeal.

Over the years, Sicilian prosecutors have started dozens of investigations against alleged members of the Cattle Mafia. In November, judges in Messina gave prison sentences to 91 people, including alleged mafia members, after large-scale EU agricultural subsidies fraud.

According to magistrates, mobsters fraudulently received more than £4.3m in subsidies between 2010 and 2017, including funds for thousands of hectares of “ghost” farmland in the east of Sicily that was either non-existent, stolen from farmers or owned by the Italian state or the regional government.