Exhumed bodies of former MP Matacena and his mother who died in Dubai. Wife under investigation

The public prosecutor's office of Reggio Calabria has ordered the exhumation and autopsy of the bodies of Amedeo Matacena, a shipowner and former Forza Italia member of parliament who died on 16 September 2022 at the age of 59 from a heart attack while on the run in Dubai, where he had long since moved to escape conviction for conspiracy to commit mafia-related offences, and of his mother Raffaella De Carolis, who also died in the UAE city two months before her son. Maria Pia Tropepi, the second wife of the former Italian member of parliament, is under investigation. The crime hypothesis is double murder.

Immediately after Matacena's death, there had been a clash between the souls of his family. It was Maria Pia Tropepi, a former model and doctor, married to Matacena in Dubai and at the time expecting twins, who had intervened to reply to one of Matacena's two sons, the eldest son Athos (born to the shipowner from his marriage to Chiara Rizzo) who had asked for his father's body to be returned to Italy. The woman had intervened to point out that her husband's wish was to be cremated in Dubai.

Matacena, in his years in Dubai after his conviction, had always refused the label of fugitive, calling himself a 'refugee'. Attempts made several times by the Ministry of Justice to have him extradited to Italy had gone always to no avail and so Matacena had continued to live in his gilded refuge in the Arab Emirates, while keeping a constant watch on the judicial events in which he was involved.

Born in 1963 in Catania, Amedeo Gennaro Raniero Matacena was the son of Amedeo senior (died in 2003), founder of the 'Caronte' company for the management of ferry services in the Strait of Messina and former president of Reggina calcio. Matacena had previously been linked to TV announcer Alessandra Canale. After his divorce from his ex-wife, Chiara Rizzo, he had recently remarried Maria Pia Tropepi, a former model and doctor.

He had been elected to Parliament in 1994 with Forza Italia and confirmed in office in 1996, but shortly afterwards he had stumbled into the meshes of justice with his involvement in a strand of the maxi 'Olimpia' investigation in which he had been given a five-year prison sentence on charges of external complicity in mafia association, as he was recognised as a politician of reference for the Reggio Calabria gangs to safeguard their interests. The sentence was later reduced by the same Supreme Court to three years. He remained in a cell for 15 days in August 2013, after which he was released.