Translated automatically by AI from the Italian original.
PAVIA – Nineteen years after the crime that left an indelible mark on Italy’s judicial and true-crime history, the murder of Chiara Poggi is again shaking the halls of the Palace of Justice. The Public Prosecutor’s Office of Pavia has formally requested that Andrea Sempio stand trial on a charge of aggravated murder.
The move marks a dramatic and unexpected turning point in the complex case tied to the villa on via Pascoli in Garlasco, where the 26-year-old was brutally killed on the morning of 13 August 2007.
The legal picture and Alberto Stasi’s position
The new initiative by the Pavia magistrates fits into an extraordinarily intricate legal framework. For Chiara Poggi’s death, Italian justice has already delivered a final verdict: a definitive 16-year prison sentence for Alberto Stasi, her boyfriend at the time, who is currently serving his term in Bollate prison after the sentence was upheld by Italy’s highest court, the Court of Cassation.
The request to put Andrea Sempio on trial – at the time a friend of Chiara’s brother and already the subject of investigations at various stages of the inquiry – now shifts the criminal proceedings to the preliminary hearing section of the Pavia Court.
The decision now rests with the preliminary hearing judge
It will now be up to the preliminary hearing judge (gup), once the date of the first hearing is set, to assess the strength and coherence of the evidentiary case built by the investigating magistrates.
At that stage the judge will have to choose between two procedural options:
- Order a trial, officially opening a new hearing before the Assize Court;
- Issue a dismissal order if the evidence gathered is deemed insufficient to support the charge at trial.
