Biography of Graziella Campaign

The expectation of Justice

3 July 1968 12 December 1985 Graziella Campaign was only seventeen when he was killed at Fort Campone, Hill near the town of Messina. Born the day July 3, 1968, worked as a presser in a laundry in Villafranca Tirrena. Earned 150,000 lire per month and with that money contributed to helping his family, consisting of father, mother and seven brothers and sisters.
His young life was cut short on the evening of December 12, 1985: while waiting for the bus that would take her home to Saadi, at around 20:00 was uploaded over a car. It was raining. After a few kilometres you will find himself along a dirt road far from the bright lights of the country. In a meadow, wearing a red jacket, a striped shirt, a pair of black trousers and boots, five shots of a shotgun the massacred frontally, from a distance of less than two meters. Pointless trying to cover himself with his arm; torn apart were the limb, the face and stomach. Despite being on the ground one last shot to the head finished. It was a real execution and no one knows why that crime was so violent, what were the questions which come under and even lasted the agony. Graziella's corpse was found two days later by a young doctor. Together with police arrived for the Campaign, his brother Piero carabiniere formal recognition. The yellow clock by Graziella was firm at 21:12, the hour of death. The coroner would have ensured the absence of violence and beatings and the lack of alcohol and drugs.
A few days before his death, Graziella at work he had retrieved from a dirty shirt a logbook of a mafia boss. In the hands of Graziella passed the secrets that no one was supposed to know. After 19 years after the crime, the Court of Assizes of Messina life sentence two former fugitives: Gerlando Alberti, Jr., grandson of Gerlando Alberti "U paccarè", said SR., boss of the Sicilian mafia, and John Sutera, already accused of murder and attempted robbery. Along with them, on charges of aiding and abetting, were sentenced to two years the owner of the laundry, and the co-worker Graziella's campaign: Frank Federico and Agata Caldwell. Four years later, in 1989, the examining magistrate has the indictment against two fugitives: Gali Aaron jr and John Sutera. Nine days after the Court of Assizes in Messina declares the invalidity of acts including the writ of indictment because of a failure to notify defendants of judicial communication.
After that the prosecution would have advanced request for acquittal, March 28, 1990 is declared not to proceed against Sutera and Aaron, because they would not have done the deed. Six years later, in February 1996 the tv program from Raitre "Chi l'ha visto" raises the case Campaign thanks to a letter from a teacher who demanded the reopening of the investigation. The letter gets the desired effect. From Italian prisons started getting testimonials from collaborators of Justice who accuse the former fugitives again Alberti and Sutera. The Prosecutor in Messina reopens the case. In 1998, at the end of the investigation, there are six indictments: Gali and Sutera are charged with murder, Frank Frederick (owner of the laundromat where Graziella worked), her husband Francis Romano, the sister-in-law and brother Joseph Frederick Caldwell Agate, accused of aiding and abetting.
Six years after the beginning of the process, at the end of 2004, comes the sentence to life imprisonment for the two former fugitives. On July 29, 2006 the Italian Parliament approved with a large majority a measure of pardon for the crimes committed until 2 may of the same year. The November 4, 2006 thanks to pardon Gerlando Alberti junior out of jail from prison in Parma, where he's serving other sentences (but not a life sentence for the murder of Graziella). The order for remand which would leave prison Sutera and Alberti at least until appeals process had already been canceled on September 23, 2006 for commencement of terms. The judges, almost two years after the verdict and twenty-one since the murder of Graziella, had not yet deposited the reasons for judgment. The story of Graziella Campaign (there will also be a television drama in 2008 to tell it) is a sad piece of national crime and a clear indicator of the limits of machine Italian judicial liquidation.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.