Michele Padovano, former Juventus footballer who also played for the Italian national team, has been acquitted after 17 years. He was accused and arrested in 2006 for international drug trafficking as a financier of a criminal organization, but was finally cleared after a complex legal process.

Padovano, who had received a significant conviction in the first instance judgment and was subsequently convicted again in the appeal trial, decided to turn to another lawyer, Attorney Giacomo Francini, a partner of the Harpalis network.

The lawyer Francini prepared the appeal to the Supreme Court, raising a legal issue that was later accepted by the court. According to the lawyer, the judges who had sentenced Padovano twice had failed to explain why, in the examination of the content of the numerous wiretaps included in the case file, they had found the prosecution’s interpretation more plausible than the equally plausible interpretation presented by the defense.

In accepting the appeal, the Supreme Court annulled the conviction, noting that the reasons put forward by the lawyer effectively addressed the issue of reasonable doubt.

A new appeal trial was then held, in which Padovano was finally acquitted.

These were the words released by the football player to Fanpage after the official announcement of the judgment: “Sixteen years ago, a click turned off the light in my life. Today, the darkness has gone away, I was almost blinded, my heart warmed up again, and I burst into tears. I thank justice, my lawyers Giacomo Francini and Michele Galasso, my wife, my son, and all those who have always believed in me.”