The Court of Cassation, Fifth Criminal Section, has ordered the total annulment of the life sentence handed down against Salvatore De Micco for the double homicide of Gennaro Castaldi and Antonio Minichini, killed in Naples on January 29, 2013.
The Supreme Court's decision fully supports the legal arguments put forward by De Micco's lawyers, Dario Vannetiello and Stefano Sorrentino, and despite the Attorney General's request that the appeals be declared inadmissible.
A clear rejection, which completely erases the conviction and calls into question the entire prosecution case.
A framework that, until now, had appeared solid and difficult to undermine. The Prosecutor's Office's reconstruction was in fact based on the consistent statements of numerous collaborators of justice, including Gaetano Lauria, Gaetano Cervone, and Giovanni Favarolo.
But it was precisely on this ground that the defense struck its most incisive blows, highlighting contradictions, inconsistencies, and unreliability that undermined the evidentiary strength of the trial.
Even the statements of Domenico Esposito, a collaborator of justice who had accused himself of having taken part in the murder commando, were called into question.
According to the Supreme Court, the reasons for the appeal ruling did not stand up to scrutiny, requiring it to be annulled without referring back to the previous decision.
Salvatore De Micco, along with his brothers, is believed by investigators to be leading members of the eponymous Camorra clan active in eastern Naples. The double homicide, according to the prosecution, was committed to strengthen and consolidate the De Micco clan's dominance in the Ponticelli neighborhood, amid a violent clash with the opposing D'Amico clan.
The same favorable outcome was also obtained by co-defendant Gennaro Volpicelli, defended by lawyers Saverio Senese and Valerio Spigarelli, whose conviction was similarly overturned by the Supreme Court.
The case now passes to a different section of the Naples Court of Assizes of Appeal, called to hold a new trial and determine whether the defendants should be re-convicted or acquitted. This is far from a simple task: the total annulment pronounced by the Supreme Court represents a significant obstacle for the prosecution and makes the investigators' work decidedly more complex, in a trial that seemed already written, but which instead, in effect, begins again from scratch.
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Comments (1)
The overturning of De Micco's life sentence is truly surprising. The Supreme Court of Cassation has called into question evidence that seemed solid. It will be interesting to see how this new trial turns out.