Milan, 79-year-old stabbing man: he was on a premium permit. The prison report said: "It has changed, it is no longer dangerous"

A premium permit one day to visit his sister. But in those hours of freedom, Antonio Cianci, a life sentence that he had killed point-blank more than forty years ago three carabinieri is a night watchman, he stabbed in the throat a 79 years old in a parking lotHospital San Raffaele of Milan. The reason: a robbery that would have earned him a few coins and a cell phone. Now Cianci – 60 years, from 40 in jail – is back in the cell, accused of attempted murder. The victim of his aggression, the elderly, is not in danger of life and in a few days could be dismissed. But it remains to understand why a life imprisonment who ended up being detained accompanied by the description of ruthless and lucid killer was awarded a day of freedom. In fact, it was a weigh report of the Bollate prison on the basis of which the supervisory judge took his decision: a real change in behaviors, it was written in that report, a positive path in recent years in which he demonstrated awareness, maturity, reliability and no longer "socially dangerous". This is also why the Minister of Justice Alfonso Bonafede sent the inspectors. Moreover, the link with the recent rulings of the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court, which put it in the hands of each supervisory judge and case by case authorization for premium permits for convicts serving for the Mafia, was inevitable.

The events took place Saturday in the late afternoon, in the underground parking del San Raffaele, on the floor "less 1", next to some coffee machines. According to the police reconstruction, Cianci approached the elderly (who was there to visit a family member) to ask him for money and at the refusal of the elderly, he would have hit her in the throat with a cutter, taking him away little money and mobile phone. The agents blocked his escape at the subway station Cascina Gobba. He still had the bloody knife with him and his bloody trousers.

Cianci, originally from Cerignola (Foggia) and that the chronicles of the time described as a young man with a difficult past and a "fan of weapons", he was 20 years old when, in the night between8 and 9 October 1979, killed the three carabinieri who had stopped him at a checkpoint between Liscate is Melzo, in the province of Milan, on a stolen car. While the military controlled his documents that night, he discovered, among other things, that by 15 years (five years earlier) he had already killed a metronotte 29 years old Gabriele Mattetti to Segrate (it was acquitted for inability mental is he did 3 years of reform), the young man fired with one automatic pistol. He killed the marshal Michele Campagnuolo, the appointee Pietro Lia and the carabiniere Federico Tempini.

When he was arrested, Cianci did not confess and said, indeed, that the soldiers of the weapon had been fired some strangers in a car. At the first instance trial came sentenced to life, confirmed on appeal in 1983. The latter trial in which, finally, however, with a letter to the judges confessed the massacre and the sentence was confirmed, then, also in Supreme Court. From the judicial documents of the time emerges the figure of a ruthless and lucid killer, who did not hesitate to shoot "behind", to the face and "to the heart" of a person on the ground, and then to "rummage among the corpses" to bring away the weapons to his victims. Until Saturday he had remained imprisoned in Bollate, now he is in San Vittore awaiting validation. Again, in front of the pm Nicola Rossato, remained silent. The investigating judge will try again to interrogate him on Monday and Tuesday.

But why then was Cianci out of jail? The green light had given him the surveillance court which was based on one report from the Bollate prison. In that document the penitentiary had spoken of "a real change in behavior" and had ruled out that the prisoner was still "socially dangerous". The judge had signed on July 26 for the permit Simone Luerti and Cianci had already left 3-4 times since the summer onwards. In Bollate, a model prison, the 60-year-old arrived in 2017 (he was previously in Opera) after another rating positive. Assessments that took into account that Cianci, detained for 40 years without interruption, after the first tiring years in which he had suffered disciplinary measures, in the last period he had always behaved well, so much so that in the past he had also been admitted to external work.

The last permit had a duration of 12 hours (from 9 to 21) with the obligation to accompany the prisoner from prison a Cernusco sul Naviglio, where the sister lives, and with the same obligation for the return. Cianci, who in the other cases had not committed violations (he obtained it by 3 days in early November), instead turned away from Cernusco to go to the San Raffaele, where – in addition to seriously injuring the elderly – he stole also a hospital attendant sweatshirt and a mask to disguise yourself.

The benefit was granted on the basis ofArticle 30b of the law on the penitentiary system that also reserves it for prisoners to life imprisonment, after 10 years of detention, who have "held regular conduct" and who "are not socially dangerous". This story, however, inevitably has raised controversy precisely because of the green light for that benefit, shortly after the controversial rulings on the permits to the mafia convicts. Minister of Justice Bonafede, who has already given a mandate to the Via Arenula inspectorate to carry out preliminary checks. "No reward for ruthless killers, especially if they killed women or men in uniform!" The League leader commented Matteo Salvini. While Emanuela Piantadosi, president ofAssociation of Victims of Duty, he asked: "How much more bloodshed should we have before the Minister of Justice and the government become aware of how fundamental it is seriously monitor recidivism in this country?".

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