Scopelliti murder: 34 years after new police findings at execution site

Thirty-four years after the murder of Judge Antonino Scopelliti, the police are returning to the crime scene for new scientific findings. Scopelliti was murdered in his car in Villa San Giovanni, Calabria, when he was only 56 years old. Scopelliti was killed in his car as he was returning to the village after spending a day at the seaside. The judge had returned to Calabria to spend his summer holidays. At the height of a bend, just before the straight stretch leading into the village of Piale, a hamlet of Villa San Giovanni, he was killed, at least two people on board a motorbike, with shotguns loaded with buckshot. Scopelliti, who was hit by two shots to the head, died immediately and his car, out of control, ended up in an embankment.

The breakthrough in the investigation, 34 years later, comes thanks to a series of checks on documents and ballistic investigations carried out on the weapon seized in July 2018. To carry out the findings, the forensic police brought back to the scene of the crime - the Ferrito hamlet of Villa San Giovanni in Piale di Campo Calabro - the judge's BMW 318i, which had been guarded all these years by family members. A Honda Gold Wing 1200 motorbike was also brought to the scene, which, according to the version of the repentant Maurizio Avola, was used to carry out the ambush. The model of the motorbike is identical to the one that was allegedly used, but of a different colour. It is a motorbike owned by a gentleman from Messina, made available to the Mobile Squad of Reggio Calabria to reconstruct the dynamics. The Reggio Calabria Public Prosecutor's Office, headed by Giuseppe Lombardo, has also instructed Beretta to faithfully reconstruct the model of the weapon used by the killers. It is a 12-gauge Arrizabala brand rifle that was brought to the scene of the crime. The magistrate of the District Anti-Mafia Directorate of Reggio Calabria Sara Parezzan is at the scene.

Having entered the judiciary when he was only 24 years old, Scopelliti had begun his career as a prosecutor at the Public Prosecutor's Offices in Rome and Milan, later becoming Attorney General at the Court of Appeal and finally representing the public prosecution at the Court of Cassation, where he dealt with maxi mafia and terrorism trials, including, for example, the first 'Moro' trial, the Achille Lauro kidnapping, the Piazza Fontana massacre and the Rapido 904 massacre. A few weeks before he was killed, he had been appointed, albeit still informally, to represent the Prosecutor General's Office against the appeals lodged against the sentence issued by the Palermo Court of Assizes in December 1990 in the Maxiproceedings against Cosa Nostra.

For this very reason, the investigators had followed the Sicilian track from the outset, hypothesising the involvement of top members of Cosa Nostra, who would have operated with the authorisation of the Calabrian 'ndrangheta. At the time, several collaborators of justice highlighted the decisive role of Cosa Nostra in defining the second war between the Reggio Calabria clans. In April 1993, the Calabrian Antonino, Antonio and Giuseppe Garonfolo, leading members of the homonymous consorteria operating in Campo Calabro (linked to the De Stefano family), as well as the notorious 'ndrangheta killer Gino Molinetti, were also arrested, in conspiracy with the leaders of the Palermo Dome. There were two trials at the Court of Reggio Calabria: one against Salvatore Riina, in conspiracy with seven members of Cosa Nostra's 'Commission', and a second against Bernardo Provenzano, in which Filippo Graviano and Nitto Santapaola, among others, were also involved.

All the defendants, convicted at first instance, were acquitted by the Court of Appeal. The investigations, which have never been interrupted, made a breakthrough in the summer of 2018, when the collaborator of justice Maurizio Avola self-accused himself of the murder, declaring himself part of the firing squad that operated in Piale di Campo Calabro and allowing the investigators to find the alleged murder weapon: a 12-gauge Spanish-made rifle buried in the garden of a small villa located in the municipality of Belpasso (Ct). In 2007, on the initiative of his daughter Rosanna Scopelliti, a foundation named after the magistrate was established.