Graziano Mesina (Lapresse)
Graziano Mesina was arrested and had been on the run since July 2020. He was among the most wanted “dangerous”
He was arrested overnight Graziano Messina, putting an end to a 17-month inaction. “Grazianeddu“was tracked down by the carabinieri del Ros at the home of a couple of acquaintances in Desulo, in the province of Nuoro. MESINA, 79, was a fugitive from July 2, 2020, the day the Supreme Court was sentenced for international drug trafficking
Graziano Mesina: arrested couple who protected him
The couple who protected the inaction of Graziano Mesina. The crime of procured non-compliance with the penalty is also being examined.
Mesina: Luzi, thanks to the Carabinieri for professionalism
The General Commander of the Carabinieri, Gen. CA Teo Luzi, expressed his compliments to all the components of the ROS, the Provincial Command of Nuoro, the GIS and the Squadron Hunters of Sardinia who thanks to their commitment and sacrifice have allowed to capture the fugitive Graziano Mesina, important operating result. “Today’s arrest – General Luzi explained to the military – was only possible thanks to your ability to work synergistically, taking full advantage of the respective skills. With your professionalism and your example you make me and everyone the Carabinieri who carry out their work every day, with equal seriousness and passion, full of pride.
Mesina captured in Sardinia, protected by silence
He slept dressed, a fugitive habit acquired from a young age, in a room on the first floor of a house in the center of Desulo (Nuoro), heated by heavy woolen blankets and a stove. At 2.30 in the night, when the blitz of the carabinieri of the Ros he was born in Gis (group special intervention) which put an end to the 17 months of his last inaction, Graziano Mesina he did not expect the break-in into the house of a 50-year-old couple from Desulo who had recently protected him, now arrested for aiding and abetting. With you ”Gratzianeddu‘, appeared in good health, had 6 thousand euros in cash. During the operation, which was also attended by soldiers of the provincial command of Nuoro and of the Sardinian hunters and which was followed by searches and technical investigations, “neither a window nor a light came on” in the neighboring houses. The carabinieri were not surprised, as reported by the commander of the Ros, general Pasquale Angelosanto, the circle around Mesina has not closed because someone has spoken: no tip-off, no collaboration. Investigators had to progressively thin the vast network of relatives (grandchildren and great-grandchildren) and acquaintances of the ‘legend’ of recent banditry in Sardinia and then rely on technical surveys, observation services and tight control of the territory, with Orgosolo placed under siege in all this time: he never moved from the island of Mesina, despite some indiscretions having imaginatively placed it abroad, in Tunisia or Corsica.
Mesina, no words after the capture
When the military declared him under arrest in the district Genneragentu, pulling him out of a ‘den’ with the windows always barred, on the face offormer red primrose of Sardinian banditry a grimace appeared, “like someone who knew what he was going to meet”, as told by Colonel Giorgio Mazzoli, commander of the division Ros from Cagliari. No words: after the capture Mesina, who is now in the Badu ‘e Carros prison in Nuoro, has shut himself up in silence. He had ended up in the Viminale’s list of the most dangerous fugitives, after his escape from Orgosolo (Nuoro), his country, on 2 July 2020. That day the Cassation he had confirmed a sentence of 30 years in prison (now recalculated to 24) for criminal association aimed at drug trafficking. In June 2019 the pardoned life inmate (now he lost that benefit granted to him in 2004) was free again due to the expiry of the terms of custody and had spent the year in a sister’s home in the center of Orgosolo: he had the obligation to stay in the village, to stay overnight at home and to sign in the carabinieri barracks, every day at 6pm. But that evening Mesina evaporated, after being found at home for a first check. His daring escapes are famous, this time the life sentence, – 79 years old last April, the closest relatives decimated by Covid over the past year – hasn’t resisted. He was not armed, but certainly it was not his intention to surrender himself or to enter into negotiations with the police, as had been hypothesized in the first days of the fugitive: those who know him well imagined, rightly, that he would have done everything not to return to prison , where he spent about 40 years. “We will do everything to catch him”, Colonel Massimo Cucchini, provincial commander of the Carabinieri of Nuoro, declared last summer to the AGI, who today reconstructed the phases of Mesina’s capture, in a meeting with journalists in Cagliari, together with Angelosanto, Mazzoli, the deputy commander of the Ros, Gianluca Valerio, and the commander of the Sardinia Legion, General Francesco Gargaro.
Mesina, three-storey house: the last refuge before capture
The blitz was triggered, after i carabinieri they noticed a man inside the house who matched the description of Mesina. They had been keeping an eye on it for days, moving especially at night to avoid being noticed, despite the difficulties caused by bad weather: Desulo in recent weeks it has been one of the towns most affected by bad weather in Sardinia, isolated from snowfalls and electrical blackouts. Several times in the last year and a half the investigators have had the feeling of having come close to capture, while Mesina moved between village houses and sheepfolds in the heart of the Sardinia. As to where he has taken refuge in all this time, the carabinieri are not unbalanced: they have investigations underway to rebuild the network of supporters. The last refuge was a house with three floors above ground plus a cellar, connected by very steep streets, and overlooking an internal courtyard. Mesina he was on the first floor, and the carabinieri reached him after breaking down the front door of the house, while on the second floor there was the couple who hosted him and who regularly provided him with food and assistance. Although they were not his relatives, the spouses took care of him in the last period: now they are under arrest for aiding and abetting, an offense which could be added to that of procuring non-compliance with the sentence, while a Oristano the validation hearing is held in the late morning.
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