The court in Brescia, Italy, decided on Friday to postpone the hearing of the defense of Olindo Romano and Rosa Bazzi, who were sentenced to life imprisonment in 2008 for the murder of four of their neighbors. The postponement was requested by the defense lawyers themselves, who wanted to “adequately prepare” for the case. The prosecutor’s office talks about a “cascade of evidence” against the convicted. The attorneys had previously filed motions to repeat the trial in their case, pointing out irregularities during the investigation.
Olindo Romano, 44, and Rosa Bazzi, who is two years younger, have been serving life sentences since 2008 for the so-called “the massacre in Erba”, during which – according to the court’s verdict – two years earlier they murdered four of their neighbors in this Italian city and set their apartment on fire.
After a long interrogation, the couple confessed to committing the crime. “From the recordings of conversations at the police station, we know that Olindo told his wife that he ‘wants to end this whole story’ and will take the blame. A moment after he told her this privately, the carabinieri called her for interrogation. Rosa, wanting to protect Before he confessed to everything, she confessed that she had killed her husband, explained the couple’s lawyer, Fabio Schembri, in an interview for Radio Padania Libera in 2011. When the officers questioned Olinda a moment later, he presented exactly the opposite version of events. Only after several hearings did the couple testify that they had acted together and in consultation.
– The way the couple described the murders does not coincide at all with what the police found in the burned apartment – says Roberta Bruzzone, a psychologist, criminologist and expert who has been working on the case for 15 years.
During the trial, the couple changed their testimony and began to declare their innocence. However, on November 26, 2008, the court of first instance found them to be the perpetrators of the event. In 2010, the court of appeal (second instance) and the court of cassation (third instance – judiciary in Italy is three-instance) in Milan confirmed this judgment.
Olindo and Rosa Romano in courtPAP/EPA
Last year, attorneys for Olinda Romano and Rosy Bazzi and the prosecutor from Milan, Cuno Tarfusser, asked the court of appeal in Brescia to request a retrial. A team of patrons and specialists prepared a 150-page application in which they list irregularities and shortcomings in the first investigation. They also prepared seven new expert opinions.
On January 10, the court in Brescia agreed to set a hearing date during which a new panel of judges will decide whether to repeat the trial in the “Erba massacre” case.
The court set a date to hear the defense lawyers
On Friday, a hearing was held at the court in Brescia to hear the position of the prosecutor’s office. “On April 16, the defense lawyers of Olinda Romano and Rosa Bazzi will begin to speak. The hearing was postponed until April due to the request of the defense lawyers who want to properly prepare for the allegations of the prosecutor general and the prosecutor from Brescia, who spoke today about a ‘cascade of evidence’ against the marriage sentenced to life imprisonment,” writes the Italian news agency Ansa.
Crowds of people curious about the case, including young people, appeared in court today. “We are here out of curiosity, this matter has been talked about for years,” Ansa quoted them as saying.
A queue in front of the court in Brescia during the hearing of the verdict in the Erba massacreAlessandro Levati/Getty Images
The daily “Il Giorno” quoted the representative of the family of one of the deceased persons, attorney Massimo Campa: – The defense application does not contain any new elements, it is a commedia dell’arte (folk comedy, created in Italy in the mid-16th century – ed.), except that it’s not a comedy, but a drama. It’s not a movie, even though someone clearly wants to make a series out of this case, he said.
Olindo and Rosa appeared in court, but a ban was imposed on photographing their image. They themselves requested that the media not be able to point cameras at them.
Main photo source: Alessandro Levati/Getty Images