A brilliant career, interrupted by the Sicars at 56 years old. Prosecutor General at the Court of Appeal, deputy attorney general at the Court of Cassation. Investigating magistrate of various maxi mafia and terrorism processes. Antonino Scopelliti It was this and much more. Now, 34 years later, the police are passing through with new ballistic surveys through a reconstruction of the criminis scene that in Italy has no precedent All the certain elements of an ambush that on August 9, 1991 surprised the magistrate aboard his car, a BMW 318i, who remained in the availability of family members, on the journey back from the sea in the Ferrito hamlet of Villa San Giovanni a Piale di Campo Calabro.
Scopelliti had represented the public prosecution in the first Moro trial, in the one resulting from the seizure of the Accelle Lauro, in the judgment for the massacre of Piazza Fontana and for the massacre of the rapid 904.
For the latter process, Scopelliti asked for the confirmation of the life sentences inflicted on the boss of Cosa Nostra Pippo Calò and Guido Cercolaas well as the cancellation of second degree acquittals for other mafia. The judging college of the first criminal section of the Cassation, chaired by Corrado Carnevale, rejected the request for the public accusation, fulfilling Calò and postponing everything to a new judgment.
The ambush occurred at the height of a curve, just before the straight that enters the town of Piale, a hamlet of Villa San Giovanni. The killers, at least two people aboard a motorcycle, stationed along the road, shot with 12 caliber rifles of Spanish manufacture loaded with balls, hitting it in the head with two shots exploded in rapid succession. The car, without control, ended up in a embankment. Responsibility and motive of the crime are even more with more shadows than lights. The law enforcement officers intervened for what was believed to be a road accident, but the external examination of the corpse and the discovery of the gun wounds made the truth emerge. Scopelliti, when he was killed, was working on the rejection of the appeals by cassation advanced by the defenses of dangerous mafia exponents sentenced in the first maxi -procurement to Cosa Nostra. The investigative hypothesis still prevalent is that to eliminate it, a pact between ‘Ndrangheta and Cosa Nostra was sanctioned, after several attempts to corruption.