Imperia excludes EncroChat messages after examining data processing
On 19 January 2026, the Tribunal of Imperia refused EncroChat material attributed by prosecutors to Luca Rinaldi. A court-appointed expert could not examine how the French data had been filtered and structured.
Judge Antonio Romano upheld the defence objection in case 4/25 R.G.T. and refused to admit material from the Tindel profile. Genoa prosecutors had obtained it from France through a European Investigation Order.
The court expert distinguished the unalterable content of the received disc from the earlier processing of the data. He could not establish how messages had been filtered, dated and classified as incoming or outgoing, or whether the French report contained all the phone data. French state secrecy prevented examination of those steps.
The judge found concrete obstacles to the defence examining the proposed evidence. He referred to Italian Court of Cassation decisions 23755 and 23756 of 2024 and EU case C-670/22. The operative order refuses admission of the Tindel EncroChat material.
