Prosecutor's Office of Gela

Niscemi landslide, 13 under investigation: the last 4 governors are also there

Also in the register of suspects are the heads of the regional civil protection department from 2010 to 2026, the general directors of the region in charge of the hydrogeological instability office and the ATI manager

by Nino Amadore

15 April 2026

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

The 13 suspects and the perimeter of the investigation
The knot of unfinished works
Failure to monitor and keep the population safe
The three phases of the survey
Next steps of the Prosecution

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

In Niscemi, the earth moved in January. But for the Gela public prosecutor's office, the landslide began much earlier: in the works that remained on paper, in the controls that were lost along the way, in the millions allocated and never transformed into works. Now that open wound in the Nissena area has become a heavy judicial file, implicating thirteen people, including the last four presidents of the Sicilian Region. In the background is a nearly 30-year-long story of alarms, ordinances, unfinished projects and responsibilities that, according to the investigators, can no longer remain nameless.

The 13 suspects and the scope of the investigation

The Gela public prosecutor's investigation, opened for culpable disaster and damage followed by a landslide, aims to reconstruct what happened between 2010 and 2026 around the Niscemi landslide. The register of those under investigation includes the last four presidents of the Sicilian Region, Raffaele Lombardo, Rosario Crocetta, Nello Musumeci and Renato Schifani; the former heads of the regional civil protection department Pietro Lo Monaco and Calogero Foti; the current head of the civil protection department Salvo Cocina the regional managers Vincenzo Falgares and Salvo Lizio; the implementers of the measures against hydrogeological instability Maurizio Croce, Sergio Tuminello and Giacomo Gargano; and Sebastiana Coniglio, head of the ATI that was supposed to carry out the risk mitigation works.

Explaining the direction of the investigation was the chief prosecutor of Gela, Salvatore Vella: 'Our activity is focusing on a period from 2010 to 2026 and calls into question the last four presidents of the Sicilian Region, the managers of the Civil Protection, the implementers of the hydrogeological instability and the head of the ATI that should have carried out the work after the landslide of '97. It is here, in this stretch of time, that the Public Prosecutor's Office identifies the heart of the possible omissions.

The knot of unfinished works

The starting point, however, remains the first major landslide in 1997. Even then, Vella recalled, there were precise indications of the works needed to reduce the risk. "Already in 1997 there were precise indications of things to be done, but they were not done. In the Region's coffers there are still 12 million euro available for the works,' said the prosecutor, pointing his finger at the most glaring contradiction of the whole affair: the funds were there, but the decisive works to make the area safe have never come to fruition.

According to the public prosecutor's office, there are no objections to the interventions carried out in the immediate aftermath of the first landslide. Instead, the critical issues are concentrated in the long subsequent phase, when the risk was known, the projects existed and the protection systems should have been maintained and updated. "In this first phase, the investigation is basically about the works that should have been carried out and were not carried out to mitigate the risk that the 2026 landslide saw, instead, realised," Vella further explained.

The lack of monitoring and the safety of the population

Not only that. Another juncture of the investigation concerns the failure to maintain the monitoring systems set up to protect the population. 'This phase also concerns the failure to maintain the monitoring systems that were initially planned and that were to protect the populations concerned. I would like to remind everyone that Niscemi is a built-up area of around 25,000 inhabitants,' the prosecutor stressed. A passage that gives the measure of what is at stake: not a technical issue confined to the offices, but a problem that directly affects the safety of a vast and fragile built-up area.

The three phases of the investigation

The investigation, Vella explained, was divided into several phases and three distinct time periods, starting from 12 October 1997, the date of the first landslide. The first phase reconstructs the actions and decisions taken after that landslide; the second focuses on the mitigation works that remained unfinished or were never carried out; the third will look at the so-called red zone of the built-up area, i.e., the area already affected by the 1997 landslide and the areas immediately near the edge of the landslide, classified almost thirty years ago as very high-risk areas by the technical-scientific commission appointed after the landslide.

Next steps by the Prosecution

In this context, the definition used by the prosecutor weighs like a sentence on the failure of prevention: 'It is the biggest landslide in Europe'. A strong formula, which alone renders the extent of the phenomenon but also the level of attention that the judiciary now intends to maintain on all that has not been done.

The interrogations of the thirteen suspects will begin in the coming days. The public prosecutor's office has already announced that it may acquire new documents and does not rule out further developments. In short, the landslide is no longer just a geological emergency or a wound in Niscemi's urban landscape. For the investigators, it is also the possible outcome of a chain of delays, omissions and work never completed that the judiciary is now trying to reconstruct piece by piece.