“Santino told me that he had seen Serena enter the barracks and had never seen her come out again.” Thus Marco Malnati, before the first Court of Assizes of Appeal of Rome, in the trial on the murder of Serena Mollicone, the young girl from Arce killed in 2001. The witness was called by the prosecution to report the confidences of Brigadier Santino Tuzi , the carabiniere who committed suicide in 2008. The former commander of the Arce barracks, Franco Mottola, his wife Anna Maria, his son Marco and two carabinieri are accused in the trial.
“He told me between 2007 and 2008 – he added – it was in a bar where we went”. When asked why he had not been so precise in a previous comparison, Malnati, Tuzi’s friend and associate, replied: “I was afraid, but now the daughters are grown up…”. “Before I didn’t speak out of fear, but now if they have to kill me they would do it…”, he said.
Yesterday before the judges, Malnati recalled the day the lifeless body of his friend Santino was found, on 11 April 2008, near a dam. That day, to the cameras of a local TV, Malnati shouted “they have closed his mouth”, referring to what had happened to Tuzi.
At the invitation of the attorney general and the lawyers, Malnati first clarified why in the past, before the investigators, he had denied that his friend had told him anything regarding Serena’s case and then underlined several times: “I no longer have faith in justice and Even though I can’t say I have received threats, I no longer trust anyone.” The prosecutor will begin the indictment on May 30th while the sentence is scheduled for the first days of July.
