Now only the one is missing Cassation to give justice, after almost 30 yearsto Antoninus Fava and Vincent Garofalothe two carabinieri killed on January 18, 1994 on the motorway at the Scilla junction, in the province of Reggio Calabria. After more than 7 hours of deliberation, the Court of Assizes of Appeal presided over by Bruno Muscle (beside the judge Giuliana Campagna), confirmed the first instance sentence of the ‘Ndrangheta massacre trial and sentenced the boss of Brancaccio to life imprisonment Joseph Graviano e Rocco Santo Filipponeconsidered an expression of the Piromalli clan of Gioia Tauro.
Life imprisonment: just as he did the Corte of Assisi in July 2020, the judges of piazza Castello also embraced the accusatory system supported in the courtroom by the deputy prosecutor Joseph Lombard and by the substitute Walter Ignatius according to which the ambush against the carabinieri is part of the so-called “continental massacres”. For the Ddaled by the prosecutor Giovanni Bombardieri, in fact, that double homicide and the other two attacks against as many patrols of the Arma were part of that massacre strategy which bloodied Italy and which was implemented by Cosa Nostra and ‘Ndrangheta in the first half of the 90s. It is no coincidence that, in the first instance sentence, there is talk of “a unitary strategy to destabilize the state”.
Unitary because “the ‘Ndrangheta acted in concert with the Sicilian Cosa nostra”. Flanked by the replacement of the Dda Walter Ignatiusthe prosecutor Lombardo repeated it several times in the indictment during which he also launched an appeal to the boss of Brancaccio: “When They gravitate will find the strength to tell us who asked him to continue the massacre strategy already in place, we will have a further piece of truth”. At the moment Graviano has not found that strength just as he has never explained the sentence (“We have the country in our hands. The Calabrians have moved”) which, according to the statements of the repentant Gaspare Spatuzzahe would have said to the latter in the famous meeting at bar Doney of Via Veneto in Rome. According to the magistrates, both the attacks by the carabinieri in Calabria as much as the project of the massacre atOlympicwhere 55 soldiers of the Arma should have died, were part of a “common subversive-terrorist strategy”.
From the massacre in via dei Georgofili in Florence to that of via Gym in Milan, passing through the bombs exploded in Rome in Via Fauro and that of I sail e you St. John Lateran: according to the judges who wrote the sentence of first instance, these are attacks that “constituted one of the most significant moments of a cynical plan of control of political power (fortunately failed) in which subversive tendencies also of different signs converged ( diverted secret services) also due to the ‘contamination’ or ‘evolution’ originating from the inclusion of the Sicilian and Calabrian mafia within Freemasonry”.
It is clear, according to the prosecutor’s thesis, that it was a strategy framed in a precise political context, the autumn of 1993, “in which in Italy – was Lombardo’s reconstruction in the classroom – after a very long time there is the risk of a communist-led government. Because in the fall of 1993 Achille Occhetto he wins the administrative elections and begins to speak as prime minister. It is a decisive historical moment for the fate of a nation that is experiencing a very difficult season, which began well before the fall of the opposing blocks in the autumn of 1989. That is a historical moment also due to the effect of the destructive force generated by the event Clean hands, managed by the Milan prosecutor’s office, which explodes on what remains of the Christian Democrats and the Socialist Party. The only left-wing interlocutor who has an unifying capacity is Achille Occhetto’s PDS who obviously at that moment speaks as if he had no opponents. And he really has no opponents. The opponent will be formalized after a few months. The opponent will become Forza Italia and we have seen that, through the unanimous voice of the various mafia components, electoral support had to be channeled towards that new political movement. Occhetto has never recovered from that blow, so much so that he has stopped engaging in politics. It was the spring elections of 1994 and, given that they are historical facts, we are in the first Berlusconi government”.
Also in the second degree process the name of the former Prime Minister and that of Come on Italy they were repeated several times in the classroom. In the motivations of the first sentence, which was confirmed today by the Court of Assizes of Appealthe judges had made express reference to the “political instigators” of the continental massacres which, following indications from the deviated secret services, were claimed by the ‘Ndrangheta and Cosa Nostra with the acronym “Falange Armata”.
This is why in the first sentence it is stated that the “responsibilities of the defendants” Graviano and Filippone “they are only a first landing”: behind the attacks it is “very probable” that in addition to the ‘Ndrangheta and Cosa Nostra there were “political instigators who through the ‘strategy of tension’ wanted to prevent the coming to power of the left”. A concept also reaffirmed in the second trial where the pg Lombardo he referred to “political interlocutors” who “have been identified, regardless of whether there may be personal responsibilities still to be ascertained”.
A sentence that goes hand in hand with the one the magistrate pronounced in the last hearing on Thursday when, replying to the lawyers, he underlined how we are facing a historic process that has not finished: “If history scares us then why becomes particularly significant at the judicial level – said the deputy prosecutor Giuseppe Lombardo – it’s not my problem. This is the history. The defence Philip says: ‘But where are the others? Where are the other instigators of this murder?’. Certainly for the classification that is given to these events there must be principals other than Rocco Santo Filippone. Well yes. That’s the way it is and I think we’ve always supported this. But we have argued that there are principals other than Rocco Santo Filippone with a robe that Rocco Santo Filippone did not have, precisely because, despite his high criminal position, it was already evident from what was present in the documents, even before the interception Adornato -Ferraro”.
The reference is toenvironmental interception recorded by the Carabinieri as part of the “Hybris” investigation which, in recent weeks, led to the arrest of 49 people believed to be close to the Piromalli gang. Speaking on 17 January 2021 was Francesco Adornato, investigated in the investigation by the Dda, who revealed to another subject, Giuseppe Ferraro in fact, some details about a meeting that took place in Nicoteraat the Sayonara resort, where the Calabrian mafia families have given their willingness to Cosa Nostra to participate in the massacres.
Returning to the magistrate’s reasoning, his words in a courtroom risk shaking the wrists not only of the mafia component of the criminal system. For Lombardo, in fact, the position of the exponent of the clan Piromalli “He is not comparable to whoever was above him. Why Rocco Santo Filippone it is the proximate mandate which is different from the remote mandate. And therefore, in a stratification of principals, here we process him in this role waiting to process the others. And the ones standing above them that put them there. We have a stratification of principals from what is sufficiently clear”.
A way like any other to say that the investigation is not over and that the “‘Ndrangheta massacre” trial will have a continuation: if an appeal sentence, not definitive, established tonight that the carabinieri Fava e Carnationmaterially killed by Giuseppe Calabro e Villani Consulatethey died because they wanted to Joseph Graviano e Rocco Santo Filipponeon the other “above them” there are others responsible for a “remote mandate” who could soon be brought to trial.
The life imprisonment inflicted on Graviano and Filippone suggests that the Court of Assizes of Appeal has agreed the prosecution system of the Reggio Calabria District Anti-Mafia Directorate. To find out how he shared it will have to wait 90 days within which the reasons for the sentence will be filed, which will then have to be examined by the Court of Cassation where, without a doubt, the defenders of the two defendants, the lawyers Giuseppe Aloisio, Federico Vianelli, Guido Contestabile and Salvatore Staiano, will appeal.