Just under six years have passed since, on 12 October 2018, Massimo Bossetti was finally convicted for the murder of Yara Gambirasio. And almost 14 years have passed since the thirteen-year-old disappeared from Brembate Sopra (20 November 2010) and was found lifeless in a field in Chignolo d’Isola. A story closed for justice, with the life sentence of the carpenter from Mapello, today 53 years old. Not for his lawyers Claudio Salvagni and Paolo Camporini, who today (Monday 13 May 2024), will be able to see the findings of the investigation, the victim’s clothing and the test tubes with DNA samples. The defenders arrived with the geneticist Marzio Capra. Present for the Prosecutor’s Office are the deputy prosecutor Maria Cristina Rota and the titular prosecutor Letizia Ruggeri. For Fulvio Gambirasio and Maura Panarese, the lawyers Enrico Pelillo and Andrea Pezzotta, who then left due to an electoral commitment. Bossetti attends the hearing via video link from Bollate prison.
Why was the hearing postponed to November 2023?
Everything was ready, on November 20, 2023, for the viewing of the finds. However, the hearing was canceled after yet another appeal (not admitted) by Bossetti’s lawyers to the Supreme Court against the same sentence that had allowed them to see the material. A technical passage which, if the defense’s request had been accepted, would have made a difference, also allowing the findings to be analysed.
And what happens now?
On 19 May 2023, the Court of Cassation which gave the green light to the viewing of the material, established that «…any further activities (…) may, if necessary, be approved following the outcome of the reconnaissance and on the basis of the report which will document it, where the defense, giving impetus to an executive proceeding distinct from today’s one, specific leftovers and corresponding request». That is, a new request to the Assize Court of Bergamo.
Would it mean asking for a review like Rosa and Olindo?
No, this is another step that is discussed if new evidence emerges, or in the meantime investigative and scientific techniques have been introduced that are so new that they can introduce real innovations. And even if it were, the request for review should be discussed.
Why had the judges rejected requests to view the finds?
On November 27, 2019, the president of the criminal section Giovanni Petillo responded “see, you authorize” to the lawyers’ request to “examine” the findings. A few days later, specified to the crime office that “examine” should mean “view”. After a series of appeals from lawyers, the first of a series of Assize Courts in Bergamo was held in June 2021. President Donatella Nava, who also presides over the Assize on Monday 13 May, wrote: «The re-proposal here of issues already addressed and resolved during the cognition phase it ends up bending the instrument of the execution incident to an unauthorized function of fourth degree of judgment with the intention of censoring, once again, the assessments of merit and legitimacy already carried out during the course of the process and consecrated in a definitive pronouncement”.
What happens when a process is closed?
First, second and third degree: the judicial system establishes that after the Supreme Court (the third degree) the sentence becomes final. End. Except, of course, for news from the review. In this regard, on the Bossetti and finds affair, the then prosecutor Antonio Chiappani said this: «I wonder what rule requires the maintenance of investigation findings indefinitelyafter the entry into force of a sentence”.
