As the jeweller, Mario Roggero, heads to prison and his wife files a pardon request, Nordio opens a formal probe into potential clemency. Meanwhile Roggero himself compares his case to two pardons already granted by Mattarella.
Premier Giorgia Meloni waded directly into the row over jeweller Mario Roggero on Friday, declaring that those who commit crimes cannot be compensated. It was an apparent reference to the millions of euros Roggero has been ordered to pay the families of the two fleeing robbers he shot dead in 2021.
Roggero, 72, was sentenced to 14 years and nine months in prison for killing the pair as they fled his jewellery shop near Cuneo in Piedmont, and for wounding a third robber. The Supreme Court upheld the sentence on Wednesday, making it definitive. Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FdI) and other right-wing parties have argued Roggero acted in legitimate self-defence. This was despite the appeals court ruling finding that he had shot the two men on the ground after they were already leaving his store. The court further noted a history of violent tendencies, including an incident in which he threatened his daughter’s boyfriend with a gun in 2005.
“The State is on the side of decent people”
In a post on X accompanied by her photograph, Meloni called it paradoxical that the robbers Roggero shot had qualified for compensation. “You attack me. I defend myself. And should I compensate you? It’s not fair,” she wrote. She said the government’s forthcoming security bill would introduce what she called a rule of pure common sense: that anyone who suffers harm while committing a crime cannot claim compensation, nor can their family members.
“Those who break the law cannot expect compensation from those who defended themselves,” she added. “The State is on the side of decent people. Not criminals.”
Nordio opens a formal probe
Also on Friday, Justice Minister Carlo Nordio launched an investigation aimed at determining whether President Sergio Mattarella might grant Roggero a pardon. The case has been sent to the Prosecutor’s Office of the Turin Court of Appeals, where magistrates will be tasked with gathering full documentation, the opinions of the Surveillance Court, and Roggero’s judicial history.
Nordio will review the findings before deciding whether to forward a formal pardon request to Mattarella, who holds sole constitutional authority to grant pardons in Italy.
League leader Matteo Salvini has separately offered Roggero a potential path to parliamentary immunity, saying he would be willing to give him a seat.
Roggero: Mattarella should “look to his conscience”
Roggero himself weighed in before entering Bollate prison near Milan on Friday, arguing he deserved a presidential pardon more than others Mattarella has granted clemency to in the past. He pointed to the president’s pardon in February of Nicole Minetti, convicted over her role in Silvio Berlusconi’s so-called bunga bunga scandal. It was granted so she could care for a sick adopted Uruguayan boy.
“President Mattarella pardoned a trafficker who killed 30 people, he pardoned Minetti, I think he should look to his conscience,” Roggero said.
Roggero’s wife, Mariangela Sandrone, filed a formal request on Friday for a presidential pardon. She also separately asked for the execution of his sentence to be postponed. Roggero was taken into custody on Friday after his detention order was issued.
