The judicial chapter for Domenico Rizza, the seventy-year-old from Catanzaro who in 2023 was sentenced by the Court of Lamezia Terme to eight years in prison, ends with a full acquittal. The Court of Appeal of Catanzaro, presided over by Judge Bianchi, completely reformed the first instance sentence, accepting the arguments of the defense represented by the lawyer Gregorio Viscomi.
Domenico Rizza was accused of very serious crimes linked to the period between 2008 and 2011. According to the initial accusatory system, the man would have operated as an external competitor in a mafia-style criminal association, contributing to the strengthening of the Giampà gang of Lamezia Terme and “armourer” of the clan, considered by investigators to be a strategic point of reference for the supply of common firearms.
Although the first degree trial made use of the declarations of various justice collaborators from Lametino, the second degree judges assessed the elements collected and the testimonies acquired differently.
The Court of Appeal of Catanzaro acted on two distinct fronts to dismantle the previous conviction: due to external complicity the accused was acquitted because the fact did not constitute a crime: therefore the main accusation of having deliberately favored the preservation and power of the ‘ndrina Giampà was dropped. The Court declared that it was not necessary to proceed due to the intervening prescription for the supply of weapons, determining in this sense was the exclusion of the mafia aggravating circumstance, which recalibrated the legal times of the crime leading to its extinction.