Rossana Di Bello (28 August 1956 – 10 April 2021) was an Italian politician. She was mayor of

Taranto Taranto (, also ; ; nap, label= Tarantino, Tarde; Latin: Tarentum; Old Italian: ''Tarento''; Ancient Greek: Τάρᾱς) is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto, serving as an important com ...

from 2000 to 2006.

Biography

Di Bello was of socialist extraction. In 1993, she founded the first

Apulia it, Pugliese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographic ...

n club of

Forza Italia Forza ItaliaThe name is not usually translated into English: ''forza'' is the second-person singular imperative of ''forzare'', in this case translating to "to compel" or "to press", and so means something like "Forward, Italy", "Come on, Ital ...

in Taranto of which she became president in the same year. In 1995, she was elected Regional Councilor, and later appointed Regional Councilor for Tourism and Cultural Heritage, a position she held until 1998, when she was assigned the Regional Councilorship for Industry, Commerce and Crafts. On 30 April 2000, Di Bello was elected mayor of Taranto with 57.5% of the votes in the ballot round. After

Adriana Poli Bortone Adriana Poli Bortone (born 25 August 1943) is an Italian politician who was a Member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2008. She represented Southern Italy. She was mayor of Lecce until 2007. Biography Born in Lecce, she became Assistant ...

(mayor of

Lecce Lecce ( ); el, label=Griko, Luppìu, script=Latn; la, Lupiae; grc, Λουπίαι, translit=Loupíai), group=pron is a historic city of 95,766 inhabitants (2015) in southern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Lecce, the province ...

in 1998), Rossana Di Bello is the second female mayor in Apulia, the first female mayor in the history of the city. She was reelected on 3 April 2005, obtaining 57.8% of the votes in the first round. On 18 February 2006, following the first degree sentence of one year and four months for abuse of office and false ideology in the investigation into the entrustment of the management of the city incinerator to the company Termomeccanica, she resigned from the office of mayor. She was then acquitted on appeal of all charges. The extraordinary commissioner Tommaso Blonda, appointed in her place, declared the financial distress of the Municipality of Taranto. On 18 October, the Ionian city recorded a liability of 357 million

euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...

s. On 21 November 2006, the deputy prosecutor of the Court of Taranto asked for the indictment of Di Bello and of 32 other people, including former administrators and officials of the capital, accused in various ways of false ideological public deeds in relation to the draft and the approval of municipal budgets in the years from 2001 to 2005. On 7 March 2007, Di Bello received another guarantee notice from the deputy public prosecutor Maurizio Carbone for abuse of office and fraud in the context of an investigation into the extension of municipal contracts. On 1 March 2011, she was acquitted by the court of Taranto for the crime of abuse of office and fraud on the procurement investigation that she was accused of due to lack of evidence.

Death

Di Bello, who was married and had a daughter, died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

on 10 April 2021. at the age of 64 in Taranto during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.Covid, è morta l’ex sindaco di Taranto Covid, è morta l’ex sindaco di Taranto Rossana Di Bello

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Di Bello, Rossana 1956 births 2021 deaths People from Taranto Forza Italia politicians Politicians of Apulia 20th-century Italian politicians 21st-century Italian politicians Mayors of Taranto Women mayors of places in Italy Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Apulia 20th-century Italian women politicians 21st-century Italian women politicians People acquitted of fraud