He wasn't at the top of the pyramid. In fact, there wasn't even a "direction" behind the arrests.
And he is not the bogeyman of the story, so much so that journalists should be "more cautious and sober" in writing, avoiding "Scarface-style stories".
And yet there must be some truth in the accusations: "one can be wrong, one can make mistakes out of naivety, vanity, for many things." In three hours before the investigating judge, Giuseppe Montella defended himself but could not deny the undeniable, documented in dozens of wiretaps in which the space for interpretations of his own voice is practically zero.
And he makes the first admissions. The Carabinieri officer arrested on Wednesday with 6 other colleagues and considered by the Piacenza prosecutors to be the head of the criminal system set up in the Levante barracks, spoke for 3 hours in the Novate prison.
A “willingness to explain a complex situation. There will be further evidence but he was 100% collaborative,” said his lawyer, Emanuele Solari, who ran for mayor of the city with Forza Nuova in 2017, calling Montella “very tired.”
Even more direct was the other lawyer, Giuseppe Dametti: "there was complete, clarifying, explicit and unhesitating collaboration". How far Montella went, someone who for the prosecutors felt "unbound by any moral and legal rule", how much he explained all those arrests from January onwards, keeping quiet about the fact that they were promoted by his "errand boys", without checks on the territory and "tainted by violence and beatings", will be understood in the coming days and weeks.
Especially regarding the chain of command since, the lawyers say, this issue too – and therefore which and how many superiors in the hierarchical ladder knew about the modus operandi in vogue in the Levante barracks – “has been clarified”.YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN: We formed a criminal association: 6 Carabinieri arrested in Piacenza for drug dealing, extortion and torture
“It is legitimate to ask how it was possible that for years no one raised doubts, for example, about the standard of living of Constable Montella, clearly superior to the economic conditions of a member of the police force of his rank.
It is serious that for years no one, due to proximity or hierarchical rank, wanted to check the sources of his financial resources or the methods with which he achieved the so-called 'operational results'. Mind you, Montella is a criminal, in the etymological and legal sense of the term".
In the documents of the prosecutors that photograph the drug dealing activities, the beatings, the rigged arrests and the 'raids' of the 'unfaithful' carabinieri of the Levante barracks in Piacenza, the corporal Giuseppe Montella undoubtedly stands out as a leading figure within the group. Last January, in front of the investigators, the young Moroccan pusher who passed the information to the Neapolitan corporal summed up his relationship with him as follows: "Mainly I spoke with Montella, who told me that in any case all the other carabinieri of the station were 'under his chapel', including the commander Orlando...
a few times I also spoke with Falanga". The boy is the author of the audio messages sent to Major Rocco Papaleo and then made the latter listen to them for the local police of Piacenza.
In exchange for the 'tips' to carry out the arrests, the drug dealer was then paid by Montella with part of the seized drugs (or in cash).
“I haven't seen him since he beat me up in the barracks,” the drug dealer said in his statement, “while he sent me a message on Facebook where he told me to stop saying things about him because it was in my best interest.” In the statements made in the statement, “the major's phrase is peculiar,” the prosecutors wrote, “as a closing statement of the conduct carried out by his colleagues, 'they do what they thought I was doing'.”
Even the behavior of Papaleo, now commander in Cremona but until 2013 at the head of the investigative unit, presents some ambiguities. Intercepted on the phone after having started the investigation, he often talks about drugs with a dancer, who even tells her how once, during a raid, she remained "buried for two hours in a hole" because she had 30 grams of drugs with her.
Montella has a privileged relationship with Major Stefano Bezzecchieri, now the former commander of the Piacenza company, who is under house arrest. This relationship goes beyond that of his direct superior, Marco Orlando, who is under house arrest.
“I want to speak directly with you, then I'll put Orlando in his place – says Bezzecchieri – just like last year I ordered, I said: 'At Levante you mustn't bother them with the services, public order, escorts' because you had to do a certain type of work”. Montella, in fact, feels invincible and after a seizure of two bags of marijuana, made together with his arrested colleagues Giacomo Falanga and Salvatore Cappellano, he says: “One bag must disappear…
great job!…the three of us have to do these things!”.
And Giacomo Falanga also spoke, even if his reconstruction seems to be full of holes. The photo in which he smiles with a wad of money in his hand together with Montella and two drug dealers? "It has nothing to do with Gomorrah - says his lawyer Daniele Mancini - it's from 2016, it was on Facebook with lots of comments and it's the result of a win at the Scratch and Win".
And the beaten Nigerian? The one seen in the photo accompanying the wiretap in which Falanga himself says that his two colleagues Montella and Cappellano have to play “the good cop and the bad cop”? “You can’t condemn a person for a joke, things have to be put into context.” And how? “The Nigerian wasn’t beaten in his presence, it was a boast by Montella, in reality he fell during the chase.”
Sure. But Montella's own words would seem unequivocal.
“When I saw all that blood on the ground I said, well, we killed him.”
And shortly after, on the phone with his partner Maria Luisa Cattaneo, "we massacred the one who ran away." The one who didn't open his mouth, however, was Salvatore Cappellano.
The one who, according to the investigators and detectives, would be the material author of the beatings and torture and the one who the prosecution defines as "the most violent element of the criminal gang" that for years raged in the Levante barracks. Without anyone noticing.
Maybe.
"What we just can't accept - the prosecutors write - and even before that understand, is how it was possible that this criminal system continued for years". The commander of the station, Marshal Marco Orlando, who will be questioned on Monday, and the commander of the company, Major Stefano Bezzeccheri, will have to explain it.
And most likely someone else too. Starting with the former provincial commander Piras now at the ministry of infrastructure and his successor, Colonel Savo who took over yesterday and who in a phone call with Orlando seems to ask for an account of what was happening. “So it was built?” he asks the marshal referring to an operation that took place the night before.
And he explains: “no, not actually built, we were working on it…”
Article published on 25 July 2020 - 21:33
