An Italian court on Thursday handed down an 18-year prison sentence against the former chief executive of Parmalat at the close of a trial into one of Europe’s biggest fraud scandals.
Prosecutors had requested a 20-year sentence for Calisto Tanzi, the 72-year-old founder of the international food conglomerate.
Tanzi, who has already been sentenced to 10 years in a separate trial, was being tried for financial crimes with 16 other former managers in a case dubbed ‘‘Europe’s Enron’’.
The Parmalat scandal seven years ago destroyed the savings of about 135,000 people, left a gaping 14-billion-euro hole in the company’s finances and destroyed the image of a top Italian business.
Prosecutors had requested a 12-year sentence for Tanzi’s brother, Giovanni, and nine-and-a-half years for former financial director Fausto Tonna.
The trial was held in the company’s home town of Parma in northern Italy.
At the time of its collapse, Parmalat employed around 36,000 people in 30 countries and was a leading light in the Italian business world.
The scandal broke in December 2003, but investigations showed the group had been in trouble for many years, surviving only on the back of major falsifications of its balance sheets and sophisticated financial instruments.
‘‘Parmalat was the symbol of a sick system and the biggest debt factory of European capitalism,’’ investigator Lucia Russo said during the trial.
Tanzi has defended himself, saying: ‘‘My intention was to save Parmalat.’’
Tanzi’s defence has blamed the banks that sold Parmalat bonds to small-time investors even when they knew that the group was insolvent.
The responsibility of Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America is the subject of another trial that is ongoing in Milan.
Tanzi has already been sentenced to 10 years in prison - a verdict that was confirmed in May following an appeal. He served nine months in prison during the investigations, but is currently not incarcerated.
AFP
Advertisement
Loading