Ex Cop Arrested for Obstructing Mattarella Murder Probe

Palermo: A former Palermo flying squad officer was arrested Friday on suspicion of obstructing investigations into the 1980 Mafia assassination of Christian Democrat Sicily governor Piersanti Mattarella, elder brother of today’s Italian President Sergio Mattarella. The murder was a turning point in Italian politics’ relations with the Mob, and led to late seven-time premier and Christian Democrat statesman Giulio Andreotti severing his ties with Cosa Nostra, according to a high court sentence.

According to Ansa News Agency, Filippo Piritore, 75, at the time a deputy of Mafia-linked Flying Squad chief Bruno Contrada, is alleged to have lied about a glove left in a car by one of the killers, police said. Piritore served as police commissioner in Caltanissetta, L’Aquila, and Genoa, and as prefect of Isernia. In January 1980, just before the Mattarella murder, he joined the Flying Squad led by Contrada, who was later convicted of Mafia links.

The probe has been contaminated by institutional elements, Palermo prosecutors said. “The investigation into the murder of former Regional President Piersanti Mattarella was seriously contaminated and compromised by institutional members who, with the clear aim of preventing the identification of the perpetrators of the crime, removed a very important piece of evidence from the body of evidence, thus permanently dispersing its traces,” said the prosecutors of the Palermo Anti-Mafia Directorate, who obtained house arrest from the investigating judge for former Flying Squad official Filippo Piritore for obstructing the investigation.

The reference is to the leather glove found in the Fiat 127 used by the politician’s killers, about whose fate the former prefect allegedly lied. The DIA (Italian Anti-Mafia Investigation Department) said Piritore is under investigation for obstructing the investigation into the murder. He was questioned by prosecutors regarding the glove found on the day of the crime in the Fiat 127 used by the killers (on January 6, 1980), which was never recovered or seized.

According to the magistrates, “he made statements that proved to be completely uncorroborated, which contributed to misleading the investigation, also leading to the discovery of the glove (which was never recovered).” Prosecutors said the name of 94-year-old Contrada, former Palermo police chief and former deputy head of intelligence service SISDE (now AISE), who served over 20 years in jail for Mafia links but was eventually acquitted, had come up in the investigations into the glove.

Contrada, as confirmed by a now final ruling, had ties to the Mafia led by Michele Greco and Tot² ‘the Beast’ Riina in the year of the Mattarella murder, which the police officer investigated both as head of the Flying Squad and as head of the Criminalpol. Therefore, according to the prosecution, while he was investigating the assassination, he maintained confidential relationships with the mafia bosses. Contrada and Piritore were friends and frequented each other outside of work.

The former flying squad officer and former prefect reportedly suspected he was under investigation, police said. “They’re doing something,” Piritore confided to his wife a year ago, unaware he was being wiretapped, saying that he feared being implicated in legal proceedings. It was September 22, 2024, and he had recently been questioned by the prosecutor’s office. “Everything I eat makes me feel heartburn right now… it’s the stress… you don’t know what…” he told the woman. “Breaking my balls after forty-five years…” Piritore continued, referring to the investigators who continue to probe the crime.

According to the prosecutors, the intercepted statements were “incompatible with the position of an official who fulfilled his duty.” Piritore was certainly present at the inspection during which the glove was found. His presence is evident from a photograph taken by the forensic police which portrays him at the place where the killers abandoned the Fiat. According to standard practice, the glove should have been collected.

But – and this is the first anomaly detected by the investigators – this did not happen. The material was instead returned to the owner of the car the killers had stolen and used to get away. According to the documentation signed by Piritore and found by the Flying Squad, the glove was initially delivered to then-Deputy Prosecutor Pietro Grasso, the magistrate in charge of the Mattarella murder investigation. “However, the procedure adopted presents several worrying oddities,” the prosecutors say.

It is incomprehensible that an object, which should have been investigated, was handed over by the Flying Squad (via a Forensic Police officer who, if anything, should have received it for analysis) to the magistrate who could have conducted no technical investigation”. “The anomaly becomes even more suspicious,” according to the Palermo prosecutor’s office, “when one considers that not only is the glove missing, but there is not even a delivery report or equivalent document signed by the prosecutor or his secretary.” Grasso, who went on to become one of Italy’s leading anti-Mafia investigators, told police he had never seen the glove.