Lavitola’s troubled story takes a turn for the worse with an arrest on mafia-related charges

It is typically mid-August, yet also quintessentially Italian – this ‘little Italy’ supposedly favoured by the elite – that one almost feels like having someone else tell the story, whilst sitting by the river and waiting. Having it told by the talented Francesco Bei, with his restrained dismay: “At the end of this sad story, as Vasco Rossi used to say, perhaps someone will find the courage to explain how it was possible, in what parallel universe it could have happened that the prince of investigative journalism, Sigfrido Ranucci, found himself in a steady partnership – sharing a table, confidences, plans and friendships, families and who knows what else – with the prince of intrigue: Valter Lavitola”. Exactly, explain it to us. On the day that Valter Lavitola, the former-post-neo wheeler-dealer and restaurateur, as well as the dear friend of the ‘prince of investigative journalism’ (with all due respect), was arrested (on a precautionary basis – we’re not the sort to throw away the key) on charges of being the instigator of the attack on his dear friend, Sigfrido Ranucci, with the aggravating circumstance of using mafia-style methods. For this reason, the presenter of ‘Report’ – who, as the investigating magistrate writes, was ‘a victim of manipulation by the suspect, owing, on the one hand, to the latter’s refined cunning’ – appears, however, to have been bound by a ‘deep bond’ with a suspect accused of using mafia-style methods.

Ranucci’s lawyer immediately stated that “the arrest of Valter Lavitola confirms the seriousness and complexity of the attack, and it will be essential to understand its motive and the context in which it was planned”. And indeed, it will be essential – and perhaps even intriguing – to understand. Given that in his order the investigating judge writes that the attack “was commissioned by Valter Lavitola solely to boost the journalist’s popularity”, a way for Lavitola to “accelerate” his own “political” projects. And at the end of this sad or hilarious story, “perhaps someone will find the courage to explain how it was possible”. Including, for example, the little question that, more than a month after the start of the investigation, nobody has ever asked Ranucci: is he really so naive – a Voltairean Candide – that he frequented Pesce’s Cefalù Bistrò without knowing what he was getting himself into? We, who are advocates of due process but also of fair and certain justice, have been wondering for a month why, with such serious suspicions (and the risk of tampering with evidence, surely?), Lavitola was not taken into custody sooner: on many occasions, people have been arrested at dawn for far less. But the investigating judge says that all the mobile phone cell data had to be cross-referenced – a massive task. However, whilst we are defenders of due process, we are also very curious to read what the self-appointed defenders of due process for Lavitola will have to say – people who were usually never quite so keen on due process when it came to those exposed by the ‘Report’ investigations. Perhaps they’ll be outraged, but they need to give it a bit of thought before speaking out, given that the investigating judge – who is not the Court of Cassation – chose to place greater weight on the evidence gathered than on Ranucci’s professions of innocence and innocence.