Carmine Spada, double murder in Ostia to control the territory

The mafia-style double murder in Ostia was organised and wanted by the top of the Spada clan, and in particular by Carmine Spada, the leader of the association. The motive is to be found in the struggle for criminal hegemony between two rival clans on the territory of the Roman coastal town. The Court of Cassation, in its sentence 32062, rejected Carmine Spada's appeal against the life sentence handed down in the bis appeal trial, annulling that verdict only insofar as it concerned the charge of conspiracy to commit the crime of aggravated unlawful possession of three kilos of drugs, on which there was a lack of evidence.

The Supreme Court thus puts an end to an affair involving, according to the judges, two excellent murders: that of Giovanni Galleoni known as 'Baficchio' and Francesco Antonini known as 'Sorcanera', which occurred on 22 November 2011 in the centre of Ostia. The position of Carmine Spada, who was acquitted in the first appeal trial with a sentence later appealed by the public prosecutor's office, had been separated from the main trial against the clan in which, last September, the judges of the Court of Assizes of Appeal confirmed the life sentence for Ottavio Spada. For Roberto Spada, on the other hand, an acquittal had been decided and the sentence for him had been set at 10 years for the crime of mafia-type criminal conspiracy. The bis appeal had come after the Court of Cassation, which had definitively recognised mafia-type criminal conspiracy for the Ostia clan, had ordered a new trial for the double murder of two members of a rival clan.

Today, the appeal against the verdict does not pass. According to the judges, the double homicide 'was part of a context of problematic, hostile and violent coexistence between criminal groups that shared illegal activities in the Ostia area, in particular,' reads the sentence, 'the association known as the "baficchi" - headed by Giovanni Galleoni, assisted by the other victim Francesco Antonini, his right-hand man - and the one directed by Carmine Spada, known as "Romoletto" or "Uncle Romolo", and his family. At the basis of the two murders was the management of drug trafficking: a local buyer had debts with both clans for the purchase of drugs and the two gangs had come into conflict over who should be paid first.

The Court of Cassation recalls that the contested sentence recognised the mafia matrix of the double murder 'constituted by the hegemonic will, useful to strengthen the predominance of the Spada clan in the territory'. Among the indicators of mafia-relatedness, there is first of all the ability to intimidate, making the clan's strength macroscopically visible, constituted precisely by the ability to carry out a double murder with a view to self-assertion of power'. The defendant will have to pay the costs of the civil parties, Regione Lazio, Roma Capitale, the Associazione nazionale contro le mafie Antonino Caponnetto and Libera.