Erba massacre, it is the day of the defense of Olindo and Rosa: “Here is the new evidence”

AGI – The Erba massacre is back in the courtroom and it is the day of the defense of Olindo Romano and Rosa Bazzi who wants to convince the Court of Appeal of Brescia on the validity of the “new evidence” which would be able to demolish the life sentence of the couple found guilty of the massacre which occurred on 11 December 2006 when Raffaella Castagna, her son Youssef Marzouk, her mother Paola Galli and finally her neighbor Valeria Cherubini lost their lives to knife and bar attacks. We return, therefore, to talk about the cornerstones of the final sentence: the confession of the spouses; the testimony of Mario Frigerio, who survived a carotid malformation; the trace of blood belonging to Valeria Cherubini on Olindo’s car. So many irons in the fire, therefore, to the point that it is difficult to think that the court’s decision could arrive today. Olindo and Rosa are sitting in the cage reserved for the accused: he is wearing a gray sweater, she has a black jacket. The court, before starting the hearing, ordered a ban on filming with mobile phones.

“Our consultancy describes a dynamic of facts completely different from the sentence which makes the presence of Olindo and Rosa incompatible with the Erba massacre”, is the debut of the lawyer Fabio Schembri who assists the couple together with his colleagues Nico D’Ascola, Patrizia Morello and Luisa Bordeaux. Schembri, in particular, cites the consultancy on the death of Cherubini who was allegedly hit in her house, and not on the stairs, as emerges from the sentence whose revision is requested, in the moments in which the first neighbors attempted to help Mario Frigerio , the only survivor. “It is a science fiction hypothesis – states the defender – that the woman could climb the stairs after the blow to the skull and due to her physical condition in general”.

And precisely on the testimony of the survivor, the defense of Olindo and Rosa identifies “serious facts and omissions and very serious anomalies”. During his heartfelt speech, Schembri maintains that “Frigerio didn’t remember anything for the first few days and it’s not true that he recognized Olindo on 26 December when he was in hospital, a period in which his condition was desperate and he had a total lack of memory. The new evidence shows that on that occasion the anterograde amnesia had reached its peak.” Schembri highlights how the consultancy revealed a “false memory following a cognitive deficit and which he was not able to testify to”.

A concept also reiterated by D’Ascola, according to whom Frigerio’s recognition of Olindo “is suspicious evidence”. At first – it is reiterated – the eyewitness describes the murderer as “a stranger with olive skin”, only later he identifies him as the neighbour. “The recognition of a known person – argues D’Ascola also on the basis of the new consultancy – is automatic and irrepressible, there is no need to think about it”.

There were moments of tension in the courtroom between the defenders of the accused and the prosecution. At a certain point D’Ascola invited the State Attorney Domenico Chiaro and the prosecutor Guido Rispoli to “avoid blatant demonstrations of dissent”. “We didn’t make a move when you spoke” the lawyer said angrily as he saw the magistrates express disappointment, shaking their heads, at some passages of his speech. Among other things, the prosecuting magistrates did not appreciate D’Ascola’s passage as an eyewitness. “There are extremely relevant interceptions in which Frigerio tells his children not to remember anything” these are the words of the lawyer who, alluding to the skepticism expressed by the magistrates on this point too, attacked: “Isn’t it true? We have noticed certain attitudes even in the last hearing. We weren’t born yesterday.”

In the previous hearing on March 1st, the representatives of the public prosecution had been very firm in asking the judges to declare “inadmissible” the requests for review by the defense and the Milan prosecutor Cuno Tarfusser. “The truth has already been written and we hope that it will soon be confirmed and that we should no longer talk about this massacre but remember the victims”, said the lawyer Massimo Campa, lawyer for the Castagna family, before the start of the hearing.