Former 'judge-killer' Corrado Carnevale dies in Rome
The former president of the Supreme Court of Cassation passed away at the age of 95. He was always acquitted in the proceedings in which he was involved, including for external complicity in mafia associations
Key points
Corrado Carnevale, a former magistrate of the Court of Cassation, died in Rome yesterday afternoon, 4 February at the age of 95. The funeral will take place on Friday in Rome.
L’“ammazzasentenze”
Carnevale, born in Licata, Sicily, on 9 May 1930, was president of a section in the Court of Cassation and for years was associated by the media with the nickname "ammazzasentenze" for a series of annulments of sentences and postponements, often linked to flaws in the motivation or procedural issues. It was one of the symbols of the weight of the judgement of legitimacy and of how much the rules of procedure can affect the outcome of even the most delicate proceedings.
The controversy of the 1990s and 'monitoring'
In the 1990s, concern over certain decisions attributed to the section that Carnevale chaired contributed to making him a central name in discussions on the effectiveness of anti-mafia justice. According to the Falcone Foundation, in the context of the maxiprocess, Giovanni Falcone himself - then in Rome at the ministry - started a 'screening' of the section's pronouncements to avoid delays and criticalities on the way to the final verdict.
Trials, charges and acquittals
Carnevale was involved in judicial proceedings, even with the hypothesis of external complicity in mafia association, but his judicial journey ended with a definitive acquittal.
Suspension, Return and Retirement
At the height of the controversy, Carnevale was suspended from service in 1993 until 2007, when he returned to the Court of Cassation (in a different function from his previous ones), before his retirement, which came in 2013.
