Mario Roggero has been definitively convicted of the murder of two robbers

The Court of Cassation has definitively upheld the 14-year and 9-month sentence handed down to Mario Roggero, the jeweller from Grinzane Cavour, accused of having killed two robbers, Giuseppe Mazzarino and Andrea Spinelli , and wounding a third on 28 April 2021, following a robbery at his shop. The decision, handed down by the First Criminal Section of the Court of Cassation, comes after five years of proceedings, following an appeal by Roggero’s defence team. The lawyers Stefano Marcolini and Sergio Rovani , on leaving the Court of Cassation, said that their client would not wait to be taken to prison: “He will turn himself in today; he will not wait.” As for where he will go, the lawyers declined to comment: “It must be his decision” to disclose this, even “to the press”. These statements follow the judges’ decision to reject the appeal lodged by the defendant’s defence counsel, thereby making the ruling handed down in December last year by the Turin Court of Assizes of Appeal final. Roggero, now 72, is the jeweller from Grinzane Cavour (Cuneo) who, on 28 April 2021, killed two robbers – 58-year-old Giuseppe Mazzarino and 44-year-old Andrea Spinelli – following a raid on his shop. The gang’s driver, Alessandro Modica, was wounded but managed to escape. Both at the first-instance trial in Asti and on appeal, the judges had rejected the defendant’s claim of putative self-defence. Roggero chased the robbers, armed with a toy gun and a knife, through the car park after the robbery had already ended, firing a series of shots from his gun at their car. “The aggressive action on the part of the robbers had completely ended,” the appeal judges had written in the grounds for their judgement. A video reconstructs the events. The robbers enter the jewellery shop and threaten Roggero, his wife and daughter with a knife and a toy gun; the safe is emptied, and they flee. Roggero fires four shots at the car, which the robbers do not have time to start. Modica was shot in the leg; Mazzarino, already unconscious, tried to hide behind the car, where he died. Spinelli fell whilst fleeing; Roggero kicked him in the head and back. The robber gets back to his feet and dies. It is the jeweller himself who calls 112. In the judges’ view, by opening fire whilst the robbers were fleeing, Roggero overstepped the law, becoming both ‘judge and executioner’.

The jeweller has always maintained that he acted in self-defence to protect himself and his family, who were in the shop at the time, whilst the prosecution claims that the shots were fired after the danger had passed, as the robbers were already fleeing.

Roggero is being defended by lawyer Stefano Marcolini, assisted by defence analyst Sergio Novani. In a recent video appeal on social media addressed to his followers , he said, “You will be my voice to change an unjust law”. The jeweller posted a video on Instagram: “Last few minutes with my family, then I’ll turn myself in… the Court of Cassation has confirmed 14 years and 9 months, which, for me, is a life sentence. Now I’m passing the baton to you,” he says, addressing his 70,000 followers, “to push forward a bill that can bring about change against injustice and against the ever-increasing spread of crime.”

Lega leader Matteo Salvini has also taken to social media to share his message in support of the convicted jeweller: “So many, so very many of us stand with Mario Roggero. We are calling for a pardon for him! A father, a grandfather, a husband and a lifelong worker, who at the age of 72 is being sent to prison because he reacted to an assault, a theft and a robbery in his shop – the family shop – with his wife and daughter present and at risk. I consider this sentence to be unjust.” “We have fought together,” he adds, “for a new law on self-defence, which has spared many decent citizens suffering and imprisonment, but clearly this is not enough and we must further extend the sacrosanct right to self-defence for those who are attacked. And we will do so. We must also ensure, by law, that no ‘compensation for damages’ is paid to the relatives of thieves who are injured or killed as a result of their crimes. For Mario now, together with all of you, I will do everything possible to ensure he is granted a pardon. An appeal we are addressing directly to the President of the Republic. A pardon for an honest man who, at 72 years of age and after a life of sacrifice, does not deserve to share a cell with real criminals.”

The President of the Lombardy Region, Attilio Fontana, has also joined in announcing the request for a pardon to the Head of State “The Supreme Court’s ruling,” says the governor, who practised as a criminal lawyer for many years, “is disheartening because it highlights the profound disconnect between the cold rigidity of the law and the victim’s harrowing psychological reality. The Criminal Code applies geometric rules to the assessment of danger, ignoring the state of terror, the adrenaline rush and the profound trauma of someone who, having suffered yet another robbery, acts on an uncontrollable instinct for survival and self-defence.”