More than two years after the issue of the condolence posters from the municipal administration of Petilia Policastro for the death of Rosario Curcio, sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of the justice witness Lea Garofalo, the Government responded to a question presented in August 2023 by the M5S deputy Stefania Ascari. The response, dated 10 February 2026, came from the Undersecretary of the Interior Wanda Ferro who did not mince words to stigmatize the event of July 2023, when the administration led by Simone Saporito posted public obituaries for the death of Curcio who committed suicide in prison in Opera (Milan).
The harsh sentence of Undersecretary Wanda Ferro
“I myself, at the time – wrote the undersecretary – commented harshly on the episode, deeming the municipal administration’s initiative unacceptable, because the mafias feed on these symbolic demonstrations and defining it as ‘a bow from the institutions’ to the memory of Curcio”.
Failure to ban public funerals
Ferro, responding to Ascari’s question on the lack of ban on public funerals, explained that «the Crotone Police Headquarters stated that it had never received any communication reporting the mournful event or indicating the place of celebration of the funeral rite in the Municipality of origin of the deceased, of which it had only become aware in the following days as a consequence of the condemnatory interventions reported by the local press. Likewise, no branch of the Carabinieri had been informed of the death, the transport, the delivery of the body and the religious function”.
This lack of information has determined «the impossibility of adopting in advance any assessment dictated by the needs of security and public order» for a possible ban on public funerals».
The mayor’s justifications and the political consequences
Ferro then summarized the justifications provided by the mayor during the hearings in the Prefecture where he had been summoned after the press reports. Saporito had spoken of a consolidated “practice” since 2021 of putting up posters for all the deceased, denying any intent to be close to organized crime. The practice was then discontinued. “In the reconstruction – explains Ferro – the posting would not indicate a position of closeness of the municipal administration towards the deceased”.
The case had led to the resignation of a municipal councillor, who was present at the funeral in a personal capacity, after the mayor had distanced himself from him at the prefecture.