Rogoredo murder, two more suspects. Now 7 with Cinturrino

The assistant chief of police, arrested this morning for the murder of Abderrahim Mansouri, killed on 26 January in the Rogoredo grove, admitted his responsibility. "I told my colleague to go and get the backpack" at the police station, "he knew what was inside". The agent, who tomorrow Tuesday 24 February will answer to the gip at San Vittore prison where he is detained, explained that he only realised while shooting that 'what the victim was holding was a stone'.

"I should have been the one to enforce the law, I was wrong. I apologise to all the people who wear the uniform: I betrayed their trust'. Carmelo Cinturrino, the assistant police chief detained for the murder in Rogoredo of Abderrahim Mansouri, turned to his lawyer, attorney Piero Porciani. This was said by the same lawyer as he entered the San Vittore prison where he is scheduled to be interrogated this morning before the gip for the validation of the arrest.

"I read with dismay the latest developments on the killing of a drug dealer in the notorious 'drug grove' of Rogoredo" and "if what has been hypothesised finds confirmation in the subsequent investigations, we would find ourselves in front of a very serious fact, a deception towards the nation and the dignity and honour of our Police Forces". Thus Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

The State Police have carried out the detention, ordered by the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office, of Carmelo Cinturrino, the assistant chief of Police charged with the voluntary murderof Abderrahim Mansouri, who was killed on 26 January in the Rogoredo woods.

In a statement, the public prosecutor Marcello Viola, who is coordinating with the public prosecutor Giovanni Tarzia the investigation by the police mobile squad into the murder of the alleged 28-year-old pusher, announced that a detention order (based on the danger of flight) was executed this morning against Cinturrino, 42-year-old assistant chief of the Mecenate police station, who is 'seriously suspected' of Mansouri's voluntary murder.

The measure, explains the public prosecutor's office, is based on 'the in-depth investigations carried out by the mobile squad' and the forensic police, and in particular on testimonies, interrogations, and 'analysis of cameras and telephone devices'.

As well as investigations 'of a technical-scientific nature, which allowed the dynamics of the event to be reconstructed'.

Cinturrino had told when questioned on the evening of 26 January that he fired a shot - which fatally wounded Mansouri in the head, above the right ear - because he was holding a gun and had it pointed at him.

He had spoken, therefore, of self-defence and 'fear'.

In fact, the investigation, which went through complex analysis, including the interrogations of the other four officers present that afternoon at the drug control and under investigation for aiding and abetting, ascertained that that gun, later found to be a blank replica, would have been placed later at the scene of the crime.

Cinturrino, in fact, allegedly told his colleague, who was just behind him when he fired, to go to the police station to get a backpack and there would be that gun inside.

The 42-year-old himself allegedly lied to his colleagues that he had immediately alerted help and instead did so 23 minutes later.

From the testimonies of friends and acquaintances of the victim, it would also have emerged, as reconstructed in defence investigations by the lawyers of Mansouri's relatives, lawyers Debora Piazza and Marco Romagnoli, that the 28-year-old man had been afraid of Cinturrino in the last period and had even intended to denounce him, because he had allegedly bribed him by asking him for protection money, money and drugs, up to 200 euro and five grams of cocaine per day, and he had refused in recent months.

Allegedly illegal and borderline conduct that the 42-year-old also used against other pushers and drug addicts in the Rogoredo-Corvetto area.

No traces of the victim's DNA were found on the blank pistol found next to the body of Moroccan Abderrahim Mansouri, who was killed in Rogoredo on 26 January, but only those of chief assistant Carmelo Cinturrino, who was arrested this morning on a charge of voluntary manslaughter. This was explained at a press conference by the prosecutor in charge of the investigation Giovanni Tarzia.

There is an eyewitness who witnessed the murder of Abderrahim Mansouri and who put on record that the 28-year-old man 'would not have been armed and would have had a phone in one hand and a stone in the other'.

Mansouri, moreover, 'would have been hit as he was about to run away' and, once hit, 'would have fallen head-on'.

Testimony corroborated by several elements, as stated in the arrest warrant against police officer Carmelo Cinturrino.

It also turns out that the officer who was with him when he fired reported that 'neither of the two policemen called a halt to Mansouri' nor did he qualify.

For Carmelo Cinturrino, there is a strong risk of reiteration of the crime, i.e. that he might kill again, and of evidential contamination, as well as the danger of flight, because he also has accommodation available.

This is stated in relation to the request for custody in prison that the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office, headed by Marcello Viola, will forward to the gip in the coming hours.

To be reconstructed in the investigation is the motive, but it turned out that in the last period the agent had targeted the alleged pusher. "He had it in for him", is the summary of the findings.

In addition to the arrest of policeman Carmelo Cinturrino, the men of the Milan Mobile Squad searched the house of the42-year-old's partner, who lives and works in the Corvetto area.

The agent is known as Luca and according to some testimonies to be verified, some drug dealers have been selling drugs undisturbed in exchange for lace to the assistant chief. No one has lived in the house for a few days.

From at least four testimonies and from the interrogations of three of the other investigated officers emerges 'an alarming picture of the intervention methods' of Carmelo Cinturrino 'during the anti-smuggling operations' 'in the Rogoredo woods' and 'a previous acquaintance' between him and Abderrahim Mansouri, 'the nature of which does not appear to have been clarified at this stage'.

A 'significantly alarming picture of the criminal potential' of the policeman detained for the voluntary murder of the 28-year-old. This is stated in the arrest order. One of the other officers put it on record that Mansouri was 'not the hub of the drug shop (...) we did not care about him, no more than other drug dealers'.