Arrest and Conviction
In June 1983, he was arrested and held in jail for months after trumped up charges by several pentiti of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata, such as Pasquale Barra, Giovanni Pandico and Giovanni Melluso, and other people already known for perjury. It was soon noted that this was most likely a wrong identification with a man bearing the same surname (meaning "turtledove"), but the pentiti kept on accusing Tortora of the gravest offences related to cocaine dealing.
He was sentenced to ten years in jail in his first trial held in 1985, being spared further incarceration only thanks to the providential intervention of the Radical Party who offered him a candidacy to the European Parliament, which Tortora won in a landslide as the country divided between those who held him guilty and those who held him innocent.
Read more about this topic: Enzo Tortora
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