Camorra boss Salvatore De Micco and Gennaro Volpicelli were sensationally acquitted.

Thirteen years after the double homicide of Gennaro Castaldi and Antonio Minichini, the legal case has reached a new, unexpected turning point. The Fifth Section of the Naples Court of Assizes of Appeal has acquitted Salvatore De Micco and Gennaro Volpicelli, accused of the ambush that took place on January 29, 2013, in the Ponticelli area.

The decision was reached during the referral proceedings ordered by the Court of Cassation, despite the Attorney General having requested confirmation of the life sentence.

This is the latest chapter, at least for now, in a proceeding that has gone through multiple levels of jurisdiction, with a sequence of rulings and annulments that has profoundly altered the framework of liability over the years.

Both defendants, in fact, had been sentenced from life imprisonment to acquittal, then again to life imprisonment, and finally to a second overturn by the Supreme Court. Now, the new appeal hearing has once again overturned the verdict.

The ambush of January 29, 2013

Gennaro Castaldi and Antonio Minichini were killed on January 29, 2013. Investigations placed the double homicide in the context of the criminal tensions that were sweeping through Ponticelli and, more generally, the eastern suburbs of Naples in those years.

According to the investigative reconstruction, the crime arose from the breakdown of a previous equilibrium between criminal groups. Specifically, investigators identified the breakdown of the agreement regarding the division of drug trafficking and extortion proceeds as one of the possible motives for the attack. The investigation implicated tensions between the De Micco and D'Amico groups.

Over the years, those hours were largely reconstructed through the testimony of several collaborators of justice. Among them was Domenico Esposito, who accused himself of being part of the commando, providing investigators with a detailed reconstruction of the ambush.

According to the collaborator, Esposito reached the area with Salvatore De Micco and Gennaro Volpicelli, awaiting the arrival of the victims. The reconstruction attributed the shooting to De Micco and Volpicelli. Esposito's statements were later supported by those of other collaborators, including Gaetano Lauria, Gaetano Cervone, and Giovanni Favarolo.

The first trial and the life sentence

The accusatory framework constructed through the statements of the collaborators then led to the trial of De Micco and Volpicelli.

The first instance trial resulted in life sentences for both. But that decision did not represent the end of the matter.

In the subsequent appeal, the sentence was overturned and the two defendants were acquitted. The Prosecutor's Office persisted and appealed the decision to the Court of Cassation.

The Supreme Court ordered a new appeal. And it was precisely from that referral that another radical change in the procedural landscape would come: the new Court of Assizes of Appeal once again reached a guilty verdict, sentencing De Micco and Volpicelli to life imprisonment.

The second step in the Supreme Court

It was at this point that the matter returned once again to the Supreme Court.
On January 12, 2026, the Fifth Criminal Section of the Court of Cassation overturned the life sentences handed down to De Micco and Volpicelli with a referral.

The decision upheld the appeals of the defense, represented, for De Micco, by lawyers Dario Vannetiello and Stefano Sorrentino and, for Volpicelli, by lawyers Saverio Senese and Valerio Spigarelli.

The Supreme Court did not issue a substitute sentence, but ordered a new hearing before a different section of the Naples Court of Assizes of Appeal. It was therefore necessary to return to the courtroom once again.

to verify the objections raised by the defense and the elements forming the basis of the conviction.
A second annulment that brought the proceedings back to a new trial on the merits and that once again made the analysis of the declaratory framework constructed over the years by investigators central.

The contradictions between the collaborators

One of the points on which the defense had focused was precisely the reconstruction provided by the collaborators of justice.

The lawyers had highlighted alleged discrepancies between the statements of Domenico Esposito and Gaetano Lauria, especially regarding the phases immediately preceding the ambush.
In particular, the reconstruction of the meeting in which the group discussed the position of Antonio Minichini, indicated in the trial reconstructions as the son of Ciro Minichini and Anna De Luca Bossa, was contested.

The disagreements therefore did not concern merely marginal elements, but the very sequence of events that preceded the shooting. This circumstance had prompted the judges, in the previous trial, to deem further investigation necessary.

The confrontation between Esposito and Lauria

The confrontation between Domenico Esposito and Gaetano Lauria was also arranged on this very ground.
The aim was to verify the respective reconstructions and try to clarify the divergences that had emerged regarding the preparatory phase of the crime.

The defense continued to argue that the discrepancies could not be considered irrelevant when the charges against the defendants were based largely on the statements of the collaborators.

Added to this was another element destined to enter into the new judgment: the question of the number of weapons used in the ambush.

The ballistics report and the number of weapons

In the new appeal trial, the defense also emphasized the statements regarding the weapons used during the double homicide.

The issue was addressed through a ballistics expert, called upon to verify the compatibility between the reconstruction provided by the collaborators and the available technical elements.

This aspect was also included in the broader debate on the reliability of the prosecution's statements. The proceedings, therefore, were not limited to rereading the testimonies, but also cross-referenced the different versions with technical elements.
It is precisely the overall validity of this accusatory system that has been once again subjected to scrutiny by the Court of Assizes of Appeal.

The Attorney General's indictment

In the new referral hearing, the Attorney General argued for the need to confirm the life sentences for both defendants.

The request had arrived in recent days, when the prosecution had once again requested the maximum sentence for De Micco and Volpicelli, reopening a procedural chapter that seemed destined to conclude after the intervention of the Supreme Court in January.
The Court, however, followed a different path.

Acquittal after thirteen years

With the sentence pronounced today, September 21, 2026, the Fifth Section of the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Naples acquitted Salvatore De Micco and Gennaro Volpicelli of the charge of having taken part in the double homicide.

The verdict closes another chapter in a legal process that began with the January 2013 ambush and has seen repeated reversals: a life sentence at first instance, an acquittal on appeal, a new trial after the Supreme Court's initial intervention, another life sentence, a new annulment by the Supreme Court, and, today, another acquittal.

On the judicial level, the full content of the ruling's reasoning now remains to be seen. This will allow us to understand precisely what factors led the Court to deem the defendants' liability insufficiently proven, and what weight the challenges to the collaborators' statements and the ballistic tests had.

This, ultimately, is the crux of a trial that has lasted over thirteen years: not the cancellation of the double homicide, nor of the investigative reconstructions that accompanied it, but the different outcome reached in the criminal liability judgment against the two defendants.