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'Ndrangheta massacre: the «short circuit» and the «irreconcilable contradictions» on the responsibilities of Graviano and Filippone
According to the Panel, the alleged role of instigators attributed to the two defendants "is not adequately demonstrated".
Published: 04/17/2025 – 10:14
LAMEZIA TERME For the Court of Cassation it is necessary to resolve the issue of the "concrete reliability or otherwise of the conflicting evidence" and, furthermore, evaluate the evidence against the defendants "for having contributed to the murder order, also possibly by exercising investigative powers", with full freedom of judgment. This is one of the crucial aspects of the Court's decision on the sentence regarding Giuseppe Graviano, boss of Brancaccio and Rocco Santo Filippone, believed to belong to the Piromalli gang of Gioia Tauro , defendants in the "Ndrangheta Stragista" trial . Last December 16, the Court of Cassation had ordered the annulment with referral of the sentence for the double homicide of the Carabinieri Antonino Fava and Vincenzo Garofalo, killed in an ambush on January 18, 1994 along the Salerno-Reggio Calabria highway, in Scilla, and for the attacks at the end of 1993, against two other patrols of the force.
The massacre strategy
The one charged to the Brancaccio boss and the member of the Piromalli clan is an ambush that falls within the so-called "continental massacres" that bloodied Italy in the early nineties. In the reasons for the sentence of the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Reggio Calabria, the judges, sharing the accusatory system supported by the public prosecutors Giuseppe Lombardo and Walter Ignazitto, had underlined the existence of "proven connections that over the years have unraveled between criminal organizations and Masonic and political environments"
broad bean and clove
The "short circuit" in the "central trials"
In the reasons released in these hours, the ermines of the Sixth Criminal Section (Pierluigi Di Stefano president) instead place the emphasis on what they do not hesitate to define as a "short circuit" that specifically concerns the "central evidence" to demonstrate "the responsibility of the defendants", starting with participation in organizational meetings. If for the Reggio judges the evidentiary structure was based on the converging statements of various collaborators of justice and in the multiple judicial investigations, now final, regarding both the structures of the Reggio 'ndrangheta in the 1990s and the role played by the defendant Graviano within the Cosa Nostra massacre strategy of the 1990s , for the Court of Cassation the reconstruction clashes "in ascertaining the moral complicity of Graviano and Filippone" in the murder of the two carabinieri.
The massacre strategy
The Court of Cassation recognizes the logic in the reconstruction of the facts reconstructed by the judges of Reggio and, above all, the relationships and shared interests between the two criminal organizations in the time frame of the ambushes and the meetings between Sicilian and Calabrian exponents on the Calabrian territory, with which the 'ndrangheta decided to adhere to the "strategy of massacres" of Cosa Nostra, through "the commission of crimes also on the territory of relevance", falling within the implementation of the "strategy of terror" with the intent of inducing the State to negotiate on the issue of penitentiary benefits and on the discipline of "repentants".
«Obvious and irreconcilable contradictions»
According to the Panel, however, the alleged role of instigators attributed to the two defendants "is not adequately demonstrated" because the statements of the collaborators of justice, valued by the judges of Reggio, are "characterized by evident and, at present, irreconcilable contradictions resulting from the text of the sentence that the District Court has not clarified in any way", despite the specific defense complaints proposed during the appeal. One of the collaborators, for example, stated that he had learned de relato the news regarding the meetings, the reason for the meetings and the subjects who would have taken part in them in addition to the mandate given to Rocco Santo Filippone "to identify the perpetrators of the attacks". The collaborator, however, despite having indicated the only source of his knowledge, later corrected this version in the appeal hearing, indicating as the primary source of the information «the father of Consolato Villani», a character of 'ndrangheta importance since the 70s and in the past close to the Latella gang, and confirmed that the same information had also been given to him by another individual who offers a different version and, above all, not compatible with that of the first collaborator. For the Cassation, therefore, «both say they learned the information in question from the other» without there having been an «effective response from the District Court».
It will be up to another Court of Assizes of Appeal of Reggio Calabria to decide the fate of the two defendants and therefore evaluate whether the evidentiary platform is able to demonstrate the responsibility of the defendants for the murder order beyond any reasonable doubt. ( g.curcio@corrierecal.it )
