Yet another judicial twist has struck the trial that has been trying for years to shed light on the eternal Camorra feud between the Mazzarellas and the Rinaldis.
Salvatore Sembianza, the historic boss of Piazza Mercato, considered for years a big shot in the "Mazzarelli" wing that later split from the parent clan, was acquitted of attempted murder and convicted of serious injury in the proceedings surrounding the ambush of Ettore Carbone, who was shot in the leg on December 20, 2016, in the Porta Nolana area.
The Fifth Section of the Naples Court of Appeal, accepting the defense of lawyers Francesco Buonaiuto and Diego Pedicini, downgraded the charge from attempted murder to grievous bodily harm, sentencing Sembianza to 4 years and 6 months in prison. This verdict drastically reduces the first-instance sentence, when the Piazza Mercato boss had previously served 12 years in prison for the same crime.
A crucial factor in the second instance trial was a ballistics report that undermined the prosecution's initial reconstruction. Despite the victim's identification at the time—who later died of causes unrelated to the attack—the defense managed to demonstrate that Sembianza had not intended to kill Carbone, but "merely" intimidate him. Supporting this theory was the bullet's trajectory: the experts found the shot to be directed downward, consistent with a leg injury and not an execution shot.
This isn't the first time Sembianza has been recognized by judges as having reduced his case or sentence, despite the weight of the charges against him and the role he was attributed in the Camorra dynamics between Piazza Mercato, the city center, and western Naples. In 2020, he had already secured a "soft" conviction for a particularly brutal crime: the murder of Algerian Abdel Chafai, who was mercilessly killed and whose body was allegedly burned and disappeared.
The bloody chapter was reopened by the sensational repentance of Salvatore Maggio, a former Piazza Mercato boss who had defected to the state. Maggio confessed to the Algerian's murder, reconstructing its details and motive, and implicated his accomplice, Salvatore Sembianza, whom he identified as a co-perpetrator of the crime and the subsequent destruction of the body. The repentant's statements provided a decisive boost to the investigation and led to a new trial before the Second Section of the Naples Court of Assizes of Appeal.
Even in that case, however, the outcome fell short of the prosecutor's requests. The appeals judges imposed a 12-year prison sentence for Maggio, who had become a cooperating witness, while Sembianza received a 15-year and 4-month sentence. This sentence was already lighter than the 18 years he received in the first instance following the summary trial, thanks to the recognition of mitigating circumstances, which were deemed to outweigh the alleged aggravating circumstances.
Sembianza's name is also linked to another high-profile trial that saw a new twist in 2019. The Mercato boss was on trial accused of physically killing the boss Pasquale Grimaldi, cousin of the Soccavo clan leader Ciro Grimaldi, known as "Settirò," and wounding Enrico Esposito in the same ambush. Investigators framed the case as part of a bloody power struggle among historic Camorra families in the western part of the city.
Even in that case, despite the "consistency" of the prosecution's case, Sembianza managed to limit the damage. In the first-instance trial, conducted under an abbreviated procedure, the leader was found not to have been charged with the aggravating circumstance of premeditation and was granted mitigating circumstances deemed to prevail, resulting in a sentence of 14 years and 8 months in prison. This verdict was upheld on appeal in June 2019, when the Court of Assizes of Appeal decided not to increase the sentence, maintaining it in line with the first-instance ruling.
The new verdict in the wounding of Ettore Carbone thus fits into a legal thread that, with downgrading of the charges, expert reports, and recognized mitigating circumstances, has reshaped Salvatore Sembianza's legal position over the years. In the background, the long bloody feud between the Mazzarellas and the Rinaldis and the ongoing tug-of-war between the Prosecutor's Office and the defense team in reconstructing the hierarchies, roles, and responsibilities of the mafia bosses who for years bloodied Naples between Piazza Mercato, Porta Nolana, and the western area.
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