Overview
- The veteran police investigator spent much of his career in Palermo, rising over three decades to senior posts in the domestic intelligence service.
- He was arrested on December 24, 1992, in the year of the Palermo massacres and underwent a long judicial saga with convictions and appeals over alleged external collaboration with the mafia.
- Italian courts’ decisions led to periods of imprisonment and house arrest, with his sentence completed in October 2012.
- The European Court of Human Rights issued two condemnations of Italy, citing improper continued detention when he sought house arrest for health reasons and the lack of a sufficiently clear legal basis for the offense for acts dated 1979–1988.
- Following further litigation, the Palermo Court of Appeal awarded him €285,342 for unjust detention, a ruling the Court of Cassation upheld in 2023.