BARI – He denied having physically shot the Rafaschieri brothers, explaining that he was forced to accept being part of the commando under threat of retaliation and also because, after turning to his father, the historic clan leader of Japigia, he would have realized that these she was no longer able to “protect” him. It is very briefly the story that Giovanni Palermiti, son of the boss Eugenio, gave to the prosecutors of the Bari DDA about the mafia ambush which on 24 September 2018 caused, after a chase which culminated in Carbonara, the death of Walter Rafaschieri and the wounding of brother Alexander.
Palermiti’s statements were filed in the ongoing trial before the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Bari regarding the Rafaschieri murder. In the first instance the boss’s son was sentenced to life imprisonment. Accused with him are the multiple criminal Filippo Mineccia, his brother-in-law (20 years old in the first instance) and the alleged supporters of the shooting, i.e. those who supplied the assassins with weapons, acted as lookouts, helped them erase the traces and hide the car used for ambush. Among them the justice collaborator, former right-hand man of the Palermiti boss, Domenico Milella (sentenced to 9 years and 4 months), the convicted criminal Michele Ruggieri (17 years and 8 months), Riccardo Campanale (18 years) and Gianfranco Catalano (9 years and 5 months). The General Prosecutor’s Office, in yesterday’s indictment, requested confirmation for all except Mineccia, for whom it requested life imprisonment.
The ambush is part of the ongoing war between the Palermiti and Strisciuglio clans for the management of the drug dealing in Madonnella. About a week before the murder – according to Palermiti – Milella would have summoned him, Mineccia and others, to plan a punitive expedition because Rafaschieri had started dealing in the neighborhood close to the streets of the Bari nightlife, violating the agreement that c ‘was with the Japigia clan.
Palermiti – according to what he explained to the prosecutors – would have wanted to stay out of it but Milella would have threatened him, telling him: «You can’t leave us alone, otherwise you have a problem with me. Don’t stay and act u gnorr’, that like frnimu cu’ chidd, then a’ cumunz’ cu’ vu (editor’s note: don’t pretend not to understand, that how do we end with those, then I have to start with vol)”. That you – he explained in the interrogation – referred to him and his father, who responded to his son’s request to intervene: «Who should I call? These people should send me to prison.” «Then I understood – reveals Giovanni Palermiti – that my father was no longer able to protect me».
The accused then recounted all the phases of the ambush, the meeting on the terrace of a friend’s house at dawn on 24 September to recover “the jackets, the guns, the masks, the balaclavas”. Then the stakeout in a small street at the entrance to the Carbonara neighborhood and the pursuit of the motorbike with the Rafaschieri brothers on board.
«While he was riding the motorbike, my brother-in-law (Mineccia, ed.) took out his gun and I remember – explains Palermiti who says he was driving the car with the armed commando – he fired a shot. He jams his gun; Milella shoots from behind, because she was already with the window open.” The hitmen’s car, with the victims now lying on the asphalt, was then involved in an accident and to ensure their escape the killers robbed a passerby’s car. Palermiti’s story continues with the details of the false alibi (a fine for driving against traffic with the complicity of the then commander of the local police of Sammichele).
