Former Juventus chairman handed suspended sentence for false accounting
The former chairman of Italian football club Juventus, Andrea Agnelli, has been handed a 20-month suspended prison sentence as part of a plea bargain over accounting irregularities dated between 2019 and 2021, AFP reported.
The charges against Agnelli, whose family has long controlled Juventus, included the artificial inflation of capital gains from market transfers, as well as misleading statements about players foregoing wages during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Two other defendants – former Juventus vice-chairman Pavel Nedved and former sporting director Fabio Paratici – received suspended prison sentences as part of separate plea agreements.
Nedved was sentenced to one year and two months, while Paratici was sentenced to one year and six months.
The rulings put an end to the last of a series of legal troubles that rocked Juventus during the 2022-23 season, when the club was handed a 10-point deduction.
Agnelli, who stepped down as Juventus chairman alongside the rest of the board in late 2022, insisted on Monday that the plea bargain was not an admission of guilt.
"The decision to request the application of a suspended sentence has been an undoubtedly difficult one," Agnelli said. The alternative, however, would have been “an indefinite limbo dragging on for many more years," he noted.
EU lawmakers uphold immunity for Italian MEP wanted by Hungary
EU lawmakers have voted against lifting the parliamentary immunity of Italian left-wing MEP Ilaria Salis, who’s wanted by Hungarian authorities in connection with attempted assault charges.
The European Parliament's legal affairs committee turned down a request by the European People’s Party to strip Salis of her immunity in a close 13-to-12 vote that was set to inform a final ruling by the parliament's plenary session.
Salis, 41, was arrested in Budapest in February 2023 while taking part in a counter-demonstration against a neo-Nazi rally.
Her case made international headlines a few months later, when she appeared in a Hungarian court in handcuffs and with her feet shackled.
Following her election to the EU parliament with Italy’s Greens and Left Alliance in July 2024, Salis acquired parliamentary immunity and was released from detention.
The MEP called Tuesday's committee vote "an important and positive signal," saying she was confident that parliament would confirm the decision in October.
"Defending my immunity does not mean evading justice, but protecting myself from political persecution by the Orban regime," she added.
Police dismantle EU-wide crypto scam ring in ‘major operation’
A “major police operation" has led to the dismantling of a long-running cryptocurrency fraud ring that conned over 100 victims out of at least €100 million, EU judicial body Eurojust said in a statement.
Police raided properties in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Romania and Bulgaria, arresting five suspects, including the alleged mastermind behind the scam, the statement added.
Prosecutors said the suspects promised victims huge returns on cryptocurrency investments via professionally designed online platforms.
However, once the victims tried to recover their investments, “they were asked to pay additional fees, after which the website that was used for the fraud disappeared."
The scheme had been running since at least 2018, with crimes recorded in some 23 countries, according to Eurojust.
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