Naples – "I cannot forgive Valda, I don't have that strength. Only God can forgive her." With a broken but firm voice, Antonio Maimone, father of Francesco Pio Maimone, the 18-year-old pizza chef killed on the night of March 20, 2023, at the Mergellina chalets, spoke today in courtroom 318 of the Naples Palace of Justice, where the appeal hearing for his son's murder was held.
“If you go to Mergellina armed, among so many people, it means you already had the intention of doing harm,” said Maimone, recalling the night when her son, a stranger to any criminal environment, was fatally shot in the crowd.
Francesco Pio Valda, Barra's young boss, who has already been sentenced to life in prison for the murder, is on trial via video link from prison.
“A Camorra murder, not a fight”
During the hearing, lawyer Sergio Pisani, representing the Maimone family as a civil party, asked the Court to confirm the life sentence:
"The shot fired into the crowd is an even more serious act than the intent to kill a specific person. This is a Camorra murder. Sentences are pronounced in the name of the Italian people, but today I ask that this one be pronounced in the name of Pio."
After Pisani, the lawyer Marco Buzzo, representing the Municipality of Naples, and Gianmario Siani, representing the Polis Foundation, which protects innocent victims of crime, also spoke.
It might interest you
Ischia, a large tourist complex seized: investigation into 70 years of building abuses
A 19-year-old stabbed in Afragola's main square: minor investigated for attempted murder
Nonstop thefts in Naples, another attack in Vomero: protests erupt.
Pozzuoli, a thousand flowers in the dock: "A symbol of the fight against bradyseism."
“There are no class A or class B victims”
"There are no first-class and second-class victims," Buzzo recalled, "but there are events that shake the collective conscience. The death of Francesco Pio Maimone is one of these."
He added: "To dismiss the mafia-related aggravating circumstance as nonexistent would mean forcing the city to take a step backwards. The Camorra's logic is also evident in the posts circulating on social media, where the two groups confront each other like clans."
“There are no words for those who lose a child”
Gianmario Siani's speech was also moving, recalling how Francesco Pio's death is "yet another symbol of the open wound that the Camorra is inflicting on Naples."
“The Italian language hasn't coined a word to describe the death of a child,” said the lawyer, “and the foundation created in his name is the testimony of a family that doesn't want to abandon itself to grief, but rather transform it into commitment.”
Siani also recalled the number of innocent victims of organized crime in Campania: over 600 names, "the numbers of a war. Anyone could have died that night in Mergellina."
The Valda Memorial
At the opening of the hearing, it was announced that Valda had filed a defense brief, the content of which will be assessed by the Court of Assizes of Appeal in the upcoming hearings.
While the speeches and words of justice alternated in the courtroom, the gaze of Francesco Pio's father remained fixed on the defense bench.
A father who chose not to give in to hatred, but who cannot—and will not—forget: "Only God can forgive. I ask only for justice for my son."
Comments (1)
Today's hearing highlighted how delicate and complex justice is. It's important not to forget that people are suffering, and that crime affects not only the victims but also their families.