Santini to Plead Innocent in Ferrari Espionage Case

Former Ferrari and Toyota aerodynamicist Angelo Santini will plead innocence on the charges against him in the case of industrial espionage against Ferrari, his lawyer said.

Santini worked for World Champions Ferrari before moving to Toyota Motorsport, where he worked until recently. During his time at Toyota, a police investigation found evidence to suggest he had smuggled data from Ferrari's wind tunnel computer programmes and used it on Toyota's computers. Toyota denied any knowledge of Santini's actions.

Now Santini's lawyer, Marco Micheli, has told the Italian media his client is innocent and believes they have a strong defence for the upcoming court case.

"The investigation by Modena's district attorney has been very complex," Micheli told Gazzetta dello Sport. "It's difficult to explain our defence due to the high technical level of the facts. This requires great effort by our computer and aerodynamics experts. There's a massive amount of material to analyze and verify.

"We'll explain the defense's argumentations at the trial. What I can say now is that these arguments exist already and they rule out responsibilities by my client."

Santini is set to stand trial along with a second suspect, Mauro Iacconi, on four different counts, all concerning a single criminal act. These charges include unauthorized access to Ferrari's computers, misappropriation of files, disclosure of confidential information, and smuggling ("fencing") of cd-roms.

Andrea Mattioli, Iacconi's lawyer, declined to give any comments.