The Case
Freedom, or at least house arrest, for Lavitola
He had already been arrested a month late. Now, following his confession, there is no need to keep him in prison for a single day longer
About a month ago, Il Foglio was the first newspaper to call for precautionary measures against Valter Lavitola: this was the first case in history of a suspect in a mafia-style massacre remaining at large.
The anomalous treatment meted out by the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office to Sigfrido Ranucci’s friend – the victim of the ‘love bomb’ – made no sense whatsoever, given that Lavitola had been arrested whilst about to board a flight to Africa to join his accomplice Clesio Gomes Tavares and given that, through his constant interviews, Lavitola was influencing other people (including Ranucci) and throwing the investigation off course. There was therefore a risk of him fleeing and of evidence being tampered with. Now those grounds for precautionary measures no longer exist, or at least are no longer as strong.
Immediately following his arrest on 10 August – more than a month after the search on 4 July – Lavitola confessed during the preliminary hearing that he had ordered the attack against Ranucci ‘for his own good, to enable him to obtain a higher level of security protection’: a staged attack to save him from a real one. The investigating judge, with the agreement of the public prosecutor’s office, rejected the request for house arrest because Lavitola’s statements were deemed “vague, entirely generic and devoid of any concrete detail capable of being verified”. Yesterday, Lavitola confirmed – and elaborated on – the same version to the judges at the review hearing: the attack was intended to protect Ranucci from an attack.
The issue, however, is not whether the motive is ‘plausible’, but whether the grounds for preventive detention still apply: Lavitola has confessed and would be placed under house arrest in Basilicata, with a ban on communication, from where he cannot escape or tamper with evidence. Detention in prison is not a measure designed to extract a confession, nor is it an early sentence for a confessed offender. If the prosecution erred (and took a risk) in requesting Lavitola’s arrest a month late, the judges would not be acting justly by keeping him in prison for a single day longer.