Involuntary Witness - Страница 36

What had occurred after the kidnapping could be easily imagined. The child, realizing what was happening, had tried to resist the attempted violence. Maybe he had tried to escape, and this had sparked off the lethal reaction of the accused. It is probable that no signs of sexual abuse had been found because the situation had got out of hand before such abuse – which was certainly the defendant’s object – had taken place.

In conclusion the public prosecutor explained why the only adequate punishment for such a crime was life imprisonment. It was the most convincing part of his whole speech, because life imprisonment was in fact the just penalty for the perpetrator of such a crime.

While this thought was in my mind Cervellati went through the ritual request for a verdict of guilty.

“For the reasons previously stated, therefore, I ask you to affirm the criminal responsibility of the defendant for all the offences of which he stands accused and therefore to sentence him to imprisonment for life with isolation by day for a period of six months, together with the application of the additional penalty of perpetual debarment from holding public office.”

I took a deep breath, glanced at my watch and realized that almost two hours had passed.

The judge said there would be a short break before counsel for the civil party was called. Subsequently there would be an hour for lunch, and when the hearing resumed I would have the floor. Following any further discussions, the court would retire to consider the verdict.

The courtroom emptied out and I too got up to go and have a smoke. Only Cotugno remained behind, putting the finishing touches to his speech.

Outside, a woman journalist I had never seen before asked me what I thought of the prosecution’s request for a sentence of guilty.

What I thought of that was that rarely had I heard such an idiotic question. I was sorely tempted to give expression to this opinion, but of course I didn’t. I said nothing, just shrugged my shoulders, shook my head and spread my hands slightly, palms uppermost. I went off, fishing out my cigarettes while the girl stared after me a bit nonplussed.

I felt fairly calm. I had no wish to look through my notes. I had no wish to do anything further until the moment came for me to speak. In any case, I didn’t feel I needed to.

This was a new sensation for me. I had always arrived breathless at important appointments, in my studies, my work or anything else. I had always left things until the last moment, the last night, the last revision; and afterwards I had always had the feeling of having stolen something and got away with it. I had managed to cheat the world yet again. Yet again they hadn’t managed to catch me out, but within myself I knew I was an impostor. Sooner or later someone would find me out. Sure to.

That morning I felt good. I knew I had done everything in my power. I was afraid, but it was a healthy fear, not the fear of being caught out, of everyone realizing I was a fake. I was afraid of losing the case, afraid that Abdou might be convicted, but not afraid of losing my dignity. I didn’t feel I was an impostor.

Cotugno spoke for a little more than an hour. He used a lot of adjectives and adverbs and succeeded in saying absolutely nothing.

In the lunch hour I went up to the sixth floor, to the Bar Council. I needed to consult a dictionary to check on an idea that had come to me while Cervellati was speaking. I found the sole employee locking everything up and on the point of leaving, but I managed to persuade her that it was an emergency. She let me into the library, where I quickly looked up what I wanted and made a few notes. Then I thanked her and left.

I would have liked at that point to take a short stroll, but the heat out of doors was intolerable. So I went to the bar, ordered a smoothie and a croissant, sat at a table and whiled the time away.

When the moment came I returned to the courtroom, took off my jacket and put on my robe. Almost simultaneously the bell rang, the door opened and in filed the court. I remained standing as I watched them, arms folded, weight on my left leg. They all seated themselves and so did I. Silence reigned.

“I call on the defence,” said the judge curtly.

I was just getting to my feet when I noticed some of the court looking at a spot immediately behind me. I felt a gentle squeeze on my left arm, just above the elbow. I turned and saw Margherita. She was slightly out of breath, and there were beads of sweat on her upper lip. She flashed a smile at me, and sat down on my right without a word.

I made a brief pause before beginning.

“Your Honour, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, as the public prosecutor has already said, this trial is concerned with the most horrible and unnatural of crimes. The violent death of a child, with its aftermath of immeasurable, incomprehensible sorrow for the parents of that child.

“If our defence has in some way unintentionally been lacking in respect for that sorrow, I ask for their pardon.”

The judge looked at me without fondness. He thought that starting that way was just an expedient to curry favour with the jury. I was so sure he thought it that I felt compelled to tell him I knew, and that I didn’t care a hoot.

“It may be thought that this is just a rather shabby way of gaining the sympathy of the court. Or at least of the jury. It would not be absurd to think this, because we lawyers often get up to such tricks. And anyway, everyone is free to think of it as he pleases. Not least because criminal cases are not debated and decided on the basis of the charm of the defence counsel or the prosecutor. Thank goodness. Cases are decided – if I may state the obvious – on the basis of positive proofs. If they are present, the verdict is guilty. If they are lacking – or even if they are merely insufficient or contradictory – the verdict is not guilty.

“We therefore have to ask ourselves on the basis of what criteria we can affirm that the evidence in a case is sufficient, enabling us to convict the defendant, or else insufficient or contradictory, in which event we must acquit him.

“In our consideration of these matters we may confidently start from the manner in which the public prosecutor proposed them.

“The public prosecutor – and I made an exact note of his statement – said: ‘There is a high degree of verisimilitude in the hypothesis that the defendant arrived in Bari from Naples, went on to Monopoli, having already worked out his criminal design in detail, or in the grip of a raptus, or brainstorm, reached Capitolo, probably switched off his mobile so as not to be disturbed, seized the child’ etc. From this ‘high degree of verisimilitude’ the public prosecutor deduces an important, if not indeed decisive, item of evidence – in order to maintain the defendant’s guilt and to ask you to sentence him to prison for life.

“Therefore, to verify how well founded and reliable is the line of argument adopted by the prosecution, we have to ascertain the meaning of the word ‘verisimilitude’.”

I paused, picked up the sheet on which I had earlier made a note in the library, and read: “Verisimilitude, we read in the most authoritative dictionary, is ‘the appearance of being true or real… the likeness or resemblance to truth, reality or fact’.

“And under the heading ‘truth’ we read this definition: ‘conformity to fact; agreement with reality’. And under the heading ‘appearance’: ‘apparent form or look, especially as distinguished from reality’. We also find an explanation of the phrase ‘It looks real’ as being used of something artificial that imitates reality to perfection. What looks real is therefore something artificial, something which imitates reality.

“Do you remember the definition of ‘verisimilitude’? The word used by the public prosecutor? It refers to something that looks true or real, that imitates reality but does not correspond to it. Something, in short, to be distinguished from reality. By using this term the prosecutor implicitly and unconsciously admits that he cannot use the words ‘true’ or ‘real’. You see clearly how in the very words of the speech for the prosecution there lurk its irredeemable shortcomings.”

At this point, as I expected, Cervellati lost his cool and protested to the judge. It was unacceptable that the defence should be permitted to pour scorn on the function of the public prosecutor with cheap sophistical arguments. The judge did not appreciate the interruption and reminded the public prosecutor that the defence could say what it liked, short of personal abuse. Cervellati attempted to add something, but the judge told him, brusquely this time, that he could make his comments on my speech – if he so wished – when the time came for his response. That was that, he said, and he would tolerate no more interruptions. He turned to me and invited me to proceed. I thanked him, carefully avoided making any reference to the interruption, and went ahead.

“What we have said briefly about the meaning of these key words – truth, reality, the appearance of reality – therefore offers us an interesting approach to interpreting the arguments used by the public prosecutor and the psychological premises underlying those arguments.

“A trial, however, is not based on a psychological interpretation of what the public prosecutor says. Neither, in order to verify whether his reasoning is right or wrong, is it based on an analysis of what the public prosecutor has said. Because the public prosecutor might have followed a wrong line of reasoning and arrived nonetheless at correct conclusions. That is, it might be right to pronounce a sentence of guilty. In spite of the public prosecutor’s mistaken reasoning and on the basis of a different, more correct line of argument.”