The investigating judge Pugliese did not believe their version. And he decided on prison for both of them. This is the sensational turning point in the investigation into the crazy car in Taormina which could have caused a massacre when leaving the Ipanema nightclub. Therefore, the two boys who the Prosecutor’s Office and the Police believe they identified as the investors of the group of young people from Catania at 3 in the night between 1 and 2 June in the Spisone district after the argument inside the club, while they were on board an Audi A4 Avant, remain in prison.
They are 24-year-old Vincenzo Patera and 25-year-old Manuel Abate, both from Messina. Yet during the guarantee interrogations this morning, with their lawyers alongside, the lawyers Salvatore Silvestro, Tommaso Calderone and Giovanni Caroè, the two had provided another version of the facts. Patera had even claimed that he wasn’t even in the car he owned at the time of the “raid”, and that he had instead quickly escaped, on foot, after being beaten, while Abate had confirmed this version, claiming that he was driving the Audi in those circumstances. Both then said that they had suffered a beating from the group of young people from Catania and that they had defended themselves.