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Murder of Corsican Restaurateur Solved Thanks to Confession by Repentant Italian Mafia Boss
CA with AFP
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Marco Raduano, head of the "Società Foggiana", Italian mafia, was arrested in Corsica on February 1 - Europol
In Italy, the confessions of a repentant mafia boss helped solve the murder of Paul-Félix Paoli, a Corsican restaurateur assassinated in 2023. An investigation in collaboration between the Italian and French authorities, which rekindles the debate on the status of repentant.
The Italian status of "collaborator" of justice, which allowed a mafia boss to confess to a crime committed in Corsica and bring down dozens of people, should be adopted in France, Italian and French prosecutors argued in Marseille on Monday, December 16.
The public prosecutor of Marseille, Nicolas Bessone , had invited three Italian prosecutors to appear before the press on Monday, after the arrest, in early December, of four people in Corsica and 14 in Italy as part of the investigation into the assassination of Paul-Félix Paoli, a beach manager, in August 2023, on the Isle of Beauty.
"If he were French, he would not be able to benefit from the status of collaborator"
Arrested in 2024 in Corsica after several months on the run, Marco Raduano, the head of the Società Foggiana, a mafia group active in Puglia (south), "agreed to collaborate" and confessed to the Italian authorities to being "the direct author" of this assassination, reported Nicolas Bessone.
"This is the first time that a foreign collaborator of justice has acknowledged facts on national territory," said Nicolas Bessone, adding: "If Marco Raduano were French, he would not be able to benefit from the status of collaborator to date since, as you know, our legislation excludes the perpetrators of blood crimes and the instigators from the benefit of this status."
For his counterpart in Bari, Roberto Rossi, "it is a mistake to consider that collaboration for the most serious crimes is scandalous: our collaborators are tools to eradicate organized crime."
The Italian deputy national prosecutor in charge of the fight against the mafia, Michele Prestipino, added: "nothing beats the statements of a collaborator of justice", because "it helps us to build and win trials but also because their existence shows that the mafias can be beaten, are not invincible, and that there is the possibility of getting out of them in another way than being killed".
Status of "repentant"
The Italian status of "collaborator of justice", the official name for the repentant, created in 1980, provides for sentence reductions in exchange for information on a network. In France, only repentant traffickers who do not have blood on their hands can benefit from protection, something that the resigning government of Michel Barnier had said it wanted to change.
Prosecutors also said the investigation had revealed previously unknown links between criminal circles in Puglia, Sardinia and the Corsican nationalist mafia.
Marco Raduano in fact indicated that he had assassinated Paul-Félix Paoli "as part of an exchange of services with members of this Corsican nationalist movement which had helped him to escape from Sardinia and ensure his escape to Corsica", specified Nicolas Bessone.
As part of this investigation, Marc Furfaro, former independence candidate for mayor of Lucciana (Haute-Corse), was arrested, accused of having helped Mr. Raduano in his escape.
CA with AFP
https://rmc.bfmtv.com/actualites/po...-la-mafia-italienne_AD-202412160660.html
