Lavitola: ‘I gave a blank cheque for the attack on Ranucci, but he wasn’t supposed to hurt him’

The hearing before the Review Court in Rome for Valter Lavitola, who has been in custody since 10 August on charges of being the alleged instigator of the attack on Sigfrido Ranucci, presenter of Report, who was targeted in October 2025. Following arguments from his defence team, the court has reserved its decision. The judges will have to decide whether to grant Lavitola house arrest and whether to declare the pre-trial detention measure null and void due to the expiry of the time limits.

‘I did all this to protect Ranucci from an assassination attempt I’d heard about. It was so important to protect him that, for two months after the events in October, I rang Ranucci to ask for his security detail to be reinforced.” This is essentially what Lavitola told the judges at the Review Hearing, according to his defence lawyers, Sergio and Arturo Cola.

According to the lawyers, ‘the political motive hypothesised by the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office is unfounded. As Lavitola reiterated again today, Ranucci never intended to stand for election or enter politics. On the contrary, Ranucci often complained that Lavitola kept bringing up the subject’.

“The bomb attack,” explained Lavitola, according to the account pieced together by his lawyers, “was Gomes Tavares’s idea, and I take full responsibility for it. Gomes warned me that he would do things his own way, without telling me that it would involve a bomb. I had given him carte blanche, specifying that he must not harm anyone.”

Lavitola’s lawyers have requested that his detention in prison be replaced with house arrest at a property in Noepoli, in Basilicata, which his son has rented. ‘Following the questioning on 8 July, Lavitola, through our firm, informed Colonel Ferrara of all his movements, making himself fully available to the investigators. It is untrue, as Lavitola himself has already stated in his voluntary statements, that he had purchased a ticket to flee: that journey was linked to a work-related conference that never actually took place in person,” they explain. “We are not only requesting this because we believe the time limits have expired, but above all because the grounds for precautionary measures no longer apply: there is no longer any risk of him absconding or of evidence being tampered with. The investigation is now firmly established on the confessions, the calls from accomplices and the other evidence gathered,” they conclude.