Diego Marmo, the prosecutor who led the prosecution against Enzo Tortora, has died.

Naples – Diego Marmo, the Neapolitan magistrate whose name remains inextricably linked to one of the darkest and most painful chapters in Italian judicial history: the trial of Enzo Tortora, has passed away at the age of 88.

The death, which was only announced today, dates back to Sunday, May 3. The funeral will be held tomorrow morning, May 5, at 11:00 a.m. in Naples, at the Church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini in Piazza degli Artisti.

The "Great Accuser" and Tortora's Ordeal

Over the course of his long career, during which he also held the delicate position of chief prosecutor in Torre Annunziata and faced difficult years of fighting organized crime, Diego Marmo became the unyielding face of the prosecution in the first-degree trial against the famous Portobello host.

It was the mid-1980s when Enzo Tortora was arrested and wrongfully accused of Camorra association and drug trafficking, based solely on the statements of dubious informants (such as Pasquale Barra and Giovanni Pandico), without any objective evidence.

During his closing speech, Marmo stood out for his extremely tough stance, leaving no room for doubt. The prosecutor's vehemence in the courtroom against the presenter caused a huge stir, going so far as to publicly call him a "cynical merchant of death" and requesting—and obtaining in the first instance trial, in 1985—a ten-year prison sentence.

Tortora, who experienced a real physical and psychological ordeal, was later fully acquitted on appeal (1986) and in the Supreme Court, before dying prematurely in 1988 due to a tumor.

A belated apology after thirty years

For decades, Marmo's name remained the symbol of what journalist Giorgio Bocca called Italy's "greatest judicial butchery." The magistrate long defended his actions, maintaining that he had acted in good faith based on the evidence available at the time.

The turning point came only in 2014, a full thirty years after the events. Appointed Councilor for Legal Affairs in the Municipality of Pompeii, Marmo was engulfed in a wave of controversy precisely because of his past involvement in the Tortora case. Media and institutional pressure forced him not only to resign from his position, but also to take a historic step: a mea culpa.

In an interview, he lucidly confessed the failure of that accusatory framework, asking the host's family for forgiveness: "I was wrong, I apologize to the Tortora family. I have carried this torment within me for too long." A belated admission that, though coldly received at the time, represented the final act in a judicial tragedy that has forever marked Italy.