Ex Palermo Prefect Arrested for Obstructing Mattarella Murder Probe
Palermo: A former Palermo flying squad member and ex Palermo prefect was arrested Friday on suspicion of obstructing investigations into the 1980 Mafia assassination of Christian Democrat Sicily governor Piersanti Mattarella, brother of today’s Italian President Sergio Mattarella. Filippo Piritore is alleged to have lied about a glove left in a car by one of the killers, police said.
According to Ansa News Agency, 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. They 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 Bruno 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 in the story of the glove.