CATANIA – The State Police of Catania has implemented an order for the application of precautionary measures against three subjects, aged 39, 40 and 42, as they are seriously suspected, in various capacities and with different profiles of responsibility, of the arson crimes, manufacturing, possession and carrying of aggravated deadly devices in a public place or open to the public and personal aiding and abetting.
THE INVESTIGATIONS
The investigations carried out by the local Flying Squad – Section Crimes against Property and the PA of the State Police, have made it possible to acquire elements that would demonstrate the involvement of the 42-year-old and the 40-year-old in the commission of the crime of burning a building, which occurred on the night of 2 April 2024, to the detriment of a well-known commercial business, located in the seafront of Catania, with a spread of the flames of such magnitude as to entail, for safety reasons, the evacuation of the entire building where the aforementioned commercial business was located.
Two people were seriously injured following the fire, namely the same suspects as 40 and 42who went, due to the severity of the burns and injuries sustained, at times close to the event, to two different hospitals.
Furthermore, it was ascertained that as early as November 2023, the same business had been affected by a similar event, with a fire developing for reasons that remained unclear at the time.
The acquisition and subsequent analysis of the footage from the video surveillance systems in the area and the testimonies of the people present at the time of the explosion then supported the circumstantial framework, allowing us to outline the roles and contributions attributable to the two suspects and in particular with regards to the 42-year-old, the role of the one who that night he would have purchased a quantity of petrol at a petrol station located near his home and that he would then have met with the 40-year-old and who would subsequently have gone with him to the scene of the event in order to start the fire, set using bottles molotov handcrafted, thus determining a explosion of such power as to result in injury to the suspects themselves and is likely to compromise the stability of the building as well as destroy the furnishings and shattering the windows.
THE ACCOMPLICE
The 39-year-old, an auxiliary employed by a company in charge of cleaning services at the hospital where the 42-year-old was hospitalised, would have warned the aforementioned, on the morning of 5 April, of the presence of bugs inside the hospital ward.
In consideration of the circumstantial elements collected, the Judge for Preliminary Investigations, at the request of the Public Prosecutor in charge of the relevant investigation file, therefore ordered, against the 42-year-old and the 40-year-old, the measure of precautionary custody in prison and the measure coercive obligation of residence in the municipality of residence, for the 39 year old.
