BARI – Three sentences for the mafia ambush on July 1, 2022 in the San Paolo district, one of the episodes of what according to the DDA is a twenty-year feud between the Vavalle family and the Strisciuglio clan. The magistrate of the Court of Bari Ilaria Casu sentenced the 22-year-old Gennaro Sardella to a prison sentence of 9 years and 4 months because he was considered the material executor of the attempted murder and the brothers Leonardo and Nicola Cassano, aged 30 and 25 years respectively, to the sentence of 3 years of imprisonment as alleged instigators of the punitive expedition, accused of carrying and possession of a firearm.
It is certain that the Vavalle brothers and the Strisciuglios of San Paolo had some unfinished business. This is demonstrated by the ambushes and threats, especially via social media, that animated the summer of 2022. A back and forth that generated numerous criminal proceedings, some of which have already ended up in the courtroom. Between March and August of that year, at least four violent intimidation actions “with gunshots” spread panic through the streets of the neighborhood.
According to the Carabinieri’s investigations, coordinated by the prosecutor of the DDA Fabio Buquicchio, the two Cassano brothers, close to the Strisciuglio underworld family, ordered Sardella to kill Francesco Vavalle, 21 years old, brother of Giuseppe, 27 years old, also providing him with the weapon used in ambush. The prosecution also claims that Sardella did not act alone but together with an accomplice, who was never identified. There is also a video to document the ambush, consisting of chases, ramming and shooting.
Investigators have reconstructed that that afternoon Francesco Vavalle would have reached the family bar and there he would have met his brother Giuseppe. Having noticed two suspicious people riding a motorbike, they decide to leave by two different means. One on a motorbike and the other behind in the car, at an intersection they again see the two-wheeler that had made them suspicious: the person driving is wearing a helmet, the other sitting behind – later identified as Gennaro Sardella – holds a gun, the he points towards Francesco and opens fire. Six, maybe seven shots go off. Giuseppe Vavalle tries to ram the two hitmen who avoid him and manage to get away.
The ambush was apparently organized “to respond to the attacks of the rival criminal group” and as part of the “management of illicit affairs in the San Paolo district”. Confirming the fibrillations that animated the neighborhood in that period. A bloody feud dragged on for months in a sequence of ambushes and “knockouts” according to the back-and-forth pattern. This is the sequence. March 19th, around 7.30pm, in Viale delle Regioni, Nicola Cassano is in the car with his 15-year-old girlfriend. Seven bullets from a 9 caliber gun riddle the driver’s door. “The Jackal” was seriously injured, her partner escaped with a cut to her ankle.
According to the DDA Directorate, that evening those who tried to kill the young Cassano out of revenge were Giovanni Montani, 45, his nephew Davide Pascazio, 28, and Michele Minella, 48, alias «Tarantella», Montani’s brother-in-law and son-in-law of Giuseppe Misceo, 58 years old, known as “the Phantom”, another big shot of the San Paolo gang. The three were arrested in October 2022.
We have told the story of the ambush on Francesco Vavalle on July 1st. Thirty days later, the feud claims another victim. A 17-year-old near the Vavalle family ends up in the crosshairs and is injured in the leg in the middle of the night while he is in Piazzetta Europa. Hits in the face with brass knuckles and a bullet fired at point blank range, then, on the following 22 August: the brothers Francesco and Giuseppe Vavalle, in the basement of the «Gran Caffè» bar in via delle Regione, managed by the family, attacked Domenico Franco, 36 years old , representative of the Strisciuglio clan. The trial of this ambush ended in the first instance with the sentencing of Francesco Vavalle to 7 years of imprisonment and his brother Giuseppe (confessed criminal, judged with a summary trial) to 4 years and 8 months of imprisonment.
Tags: convictions July attack
