Sensational turning point in the investigation into the murder of Piersanti Mattarella , former President of the Sicilian Region and brother of the President of the Republic Sergio, killed by Cosa Nostra on 6 January 1980 in Palermo .

The DIA (Italian Anti-Mafia Investigation Department) has notified Filippo Piritore, a former officer of the Palermo Flying Squad and former prefect, of the house arrest order. Piritore is under investigation for obstructing the investigation into the murder: questioned by prosecutors about the glove found on the day of the crime in the Fiat 127 used by the killers, which was never recovered or seized , according to the magistrates, "he made statements that proved to be completely uncorroborated, which contributed to misleading the investigation, also leading to the discovery of the glove (which was never recovered)."

The glove, considered a crucial piece of evidence in tracing the perpetrators of the murder, has vanished into thin air. And according to investigators, it was Piritore who made it disappear. To prosecutors, who questioned him as a witness in September 2024, Piritore told—a lie, according to the Palermo Prosecutor's Office—that he had initially entrusted the glove to Forensic Police officer Di Natale, who was supposed to give it to Pietro Grasso, then deputy prosecutor in charge of the crime investigation.

The magistrate, according to Piritore, then arranged for the evidence to be returned to the Regional Scientific Police Office, and Piritore then handed it over, along with the relevant certificate, to another member of the Palermo Scientific Police, Lauricella, for technical investigation.

The suspect also claimed that the Flying Squad had a note confirming the delivery. According to the prosecution, however, the former official's story is far-fetched and illogical, suggesting that crucial evidence, so much so that even then-Interior Minister Rognoni was informed of its existence, was tossed around for days without reason from one office to another.

The former official's words also clash with the testimonies of key figures in the case, such as Piero Grasso and Officer Di Natale; with the practice of collecting and seizing anything deemed useful to the investigation that was followed at the time in similar cases; and with the fact that Lauricella was not employed by the Forensic Science Unit at the time.

" Filippo Piritore, who had been in possession of the glove since it was found, carried out an activity that covered up all traces of it ," prosecutors accuse him of. "It probably began with his intervention at the site where the Fiat 127 was found, where he persuaded the forensic police to hand over the glove to him, thus removing it from the regular collection and contrary to what normally happened in such circumstances."

The prosecutors spoke bluntly of an investigation "seriously tainted and compromised by institutional figures who, with the clear aim of preventing the identification of the perpetrators of the crime, removed a very important piece of evidence from the body of evidence, thus causing its traces to be lost forever."

The investigation also includes the name of Bruno Contrada, the former number two at the SISDE, convicted of external complicity with mafia association . A now final sentence establishes that Contrada, in the year of the Mattarella murder, which the police officer investigated both as head of the Flying Squad and as head of Criminalpol, had ties to the mafia led by Michele Greco and Totò Riina. Therefore, the prosecution argues, while he was investigating the assassination, he maintained confidential relationships with the bosses .

The former number two at the SISDE, prosecutors maintain, was at the crime scene to participate in the investigation and, on January 6, 1980, together with Carabinieri officer Antonio Subranni and then-prosecutor Piero Grasso, gathered information from both Mattarella's widow, Irma Chiazzese, and his son Bernardo, both of whom were present at the murder. Finally, according to prosecutors, Contrada and Piritore were friends and frequented each other outside of work.

The instigators of Mattarella's murder, the bosses of the Cosa Nostra Cupola including Totò Riina and Michele Greco, have been definitively convicted, while the black terrorists Valerio Fioravanti and Gilberto Cavallini, initially indicated as the perpetrators, have been acquitted .

Just this year, 45 years after the crime, Antonino Madonia and Giuseppe Lucchese were entered into the register of suspects as possible perpetrators.

(Unioneonline)

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