The sensational revelation of the carabiniere who investigated the murder of Nada Cella: “I asked the prosecutor Filippo Gebbia to question Anna Lucia Cecere but he told me not to distract the investigation”

We went to the magistrate to ask for an interrogation of the suspect and perhaps some other in-depth information.”

But “the magistrate told us to close as soon as possible so as not to constitute a distraction to the activities which at that moment were in a delicate phase, as the case was soon to be settled”.

The speaker is a policeman who in 1996, during the first investigations into the murder of Nada Cella in his employer’s office Marco Soraccotogether with some colleagues from the Sestri Levante Company he had worked on the “track” Anna Lucia Cecere: the woman then immediately left the investigation, now accused of murder by the Genoa Prosecutor’s Office, but acquitted by the judge for the preliminary hearings Angela Nutini.

Now the prosecutor Gabriella Dotto is writing the appeal against the GUP’s decision not to send the 55-year-old teacher to trial, and among the papers in the investigation documents the interrogation of the soldier will also have a certain weight Giuseppe Mariottalieutenant now serving in Sicily.

His words to the prosecutor on 7 December 2021, from the perspective of the prosecution but also of the civil party (Nada’s family members, primarily her mother Silvana Smaniotto, are assisted by the lawyer Sabrina Franzone), would demonstrate how it is impossible today to take things at face value the investigations on Cecere carried out in 1996. As is done in various passages of the ruling of no place to proceed issued by the preliminary hearing judge.

It goes without saying that the definition of the case defined as “proximate” in 1996 by the magistrate, i.e. the public prosecutor Filippo Gebbia, still today it has not been achieved. In his summary information, the soldier adds that in addition to the interrogation he and some colleagues asked to be able to do “some other in-depth analysis”, but the prosecutor was adamant. Moreover, «some newspapers also said that the investigators were close to solving the case. The name of the possible perpetrator was not mentioned but it was clear to everyone that the suspect was Marco Soracco.”

Certainly in the magistrate’s mind the refusal to interrogate Cecere, and the desire to immediately dismiss the woman’s position, had its solid reasons. The two main discoveries of the Carabinieri of Sestri Levante, where a now identified confidential source had presented herself (a neighbor of Cecere, who spoke of the woman’s alleged “marital aims” for Soracco) had already been debunked. First the well-known discovery of buttons at the Cecere house so similar to the one found in a pool of blood at the crime scene. Considered different after a brief photographic comparison. Mariotta explains: «When we were told that the buttons were different we certainly couldn’t insist». Another point against it, the beggar and her son, who said they had seen a woman near the studio in Via Marsala, did not recognize Cecere through photographic comparison.

In short, says Mariotta, “we convinced ourselves that our news was unfounded and we almost had the feeling of being an obstacle to the activities that were leading in another direction.” Despite the rapid investigation, something then ended up in the newspapers, even if contrary to what was written by the preliminary hearing judge, Anna Lucia Cecere’s name was never mentioned in the press: «The newspapers spoke about the woman we searched, describing her as a single mother, that he would have had a relationship with Soracco”. And regarding Cecere’s behavior during the search, «we were taken aback. She was cool, she wasn’t agitated or worried. As if everything was back to normal.”