The boss Matteo Messina Denaro has renounced to be present by videoconference from the prison of L’Aquila, where he is detained, with the bunker room of the Malaspina prison in Caltanissetta where the trial is taking place in which he is accused as instigator of the Capaci massacres and via D’Amelio. This was communicated by the president of the Court of Assizes of appeal. There was expectation this morning inside the bunker room where the appeal process is being held against the boss, accused of being the instigator of the Capaci and Via D’Amelio massacres. It would have been the fugitive’s first time in a courtroom, arrested last Monday in Palermo. The video connection with the L’Aquila prison, where Messina Denaro is held, had been activated but the defendant gave up.
The boss would have renounced to be present due to his first chemotherapy session which he is undergoing in these hours inside the penitentiary institution. According to informed sources, a special room would have been set up not far from his cell where Messina Denaro undergoes treatment. At the moment there is no certainty, by virtue of this medical necessity, on what the intentions of the Cosa Nostra boss will be regarding his possible participation in the next hearings of the trial.
The hearing was postponed to March 9 “to allow the defender to be present”. This was decided by the president of the Court of Assizes of Caltanissetta Maria Carmela Giannazzo, after the boss decided not to attend the hearing by videoconference from the L’Aquila prison. One of the boss’s two public defenders, the lawyer Salvatore Baglio, communicated that he had received an oral proxy from the trusted defender appointed by Messina Denaro, his niece Lorenza Guttadauro, and asked for terms of defense.
Attorney General Patti: “We all hope that Messina Denaro cooperates”
“We all hope that he collaborates, but none of us can know it. He is the depository of knowledge on the massacre season of ’92 and ’94 still today unproven and unknown by other collaborators”. This was stated by the attorney general of Caltanissetta, Antonino Patti, at the end of the hearing in the trial of Matteo Messina Denaro, as instigator of the massacres of Capaci and via D’Amelio, which is celebrated before the Court of Assizes of Appeal in Caltanissetta . The proceedings were postponed to March 9 to allow the defendant’s trusted lawyer, Lorenza Guttadauro, to be present.
Seized the house of the mother of Andrea Bonafede, the man under whose identity the godfather on the run is covered
The house owned by Andrea Bonafede’s mother, the alias used by the boss Matteo Messina Denaro during his fugitive, was seized. The house is located on the corner between via Marsala and via Cusmano in Campobello di Mazara. The ground floor apartment has two entrances. However, the house has been unoccupied for some time. Bonafede’s mother lives in the Tre Fontane house together with one of her daughters.
The boss’s driver in the clinic: “I didn’t know it was Messina Denaro”
“I didn’t know it was Matteo Messina Denaro, only a madman could have accompanied him knowing that he was the boss”. This is how Giovanni Luppino, the driver of the super fugitive arrested last Monday in Palermo while accompanying him to the La Maddalena clinic, defended himself. His defender, the lawyer Giuseppe Ferro, said this at the end of the validation hearing before the investigating magistrate which took place in the Pagliarelli prison. Luppino, 59, an olive merchant, claimed not to know Messina Denaro, who had been introduced to him as Andrea Bonafede’s brother-in-law, and to have accompanied him because he had to undergo chemotherapy. Luppino, assisted by his lawyer Giuseppe Ferro, defended himself before the magistrate by claiming that he did not know that the man he was accompanying was Matteo Messina Denaro. The olive merchant explained that he had met him a few months ago and that he had been introduced to him, with the name of “Francesco”, as the brother-in-law of Andrea Bonafede, the surveyor to whom the false identity card used by the super fugitive was registered . Luppino added that he accompanied him last Monday for the first time to Palermo, where the boss had to undergo a cycle of chemotherapy, because this courtesy had been asked of him precisely because of his health conditions. The Gip Fabio Pilato validated the arrest in flagrante delicto of Giovanni Luppinoe reserved the right to decide on the request for pre-trial detention in prison. Luppino answers for procured non-compliance with the sentence and aiding and abetting aggravated by the mafia method.
Medical Counsel: Will clarify when questioned
“My client is confident in the judiciary and in the forces of order to ascertain the truth. I don’t think Dr. Tumbarello’s attitude can be different from those who intend to give clarifications that they can and are in a position to give”. This is what the lawyer Giuseppe Pantaleo says, appointed defense attorney by Alfonso Tumbarello. The doctor of Campobello di Mazara prescribed medical prescriptions to his assistant Andrea Bonafede, a name however used (via identity card and health card) by the boss Matteo Messina Denaro to get treatment and carry out visits and examinations in health facilities.
