Ernesto Fazzalari, the 'ndrangheta boss arrested in the province of Reggio Calabria in June 2016, at the time the second most wanted fugitive after Matteo Messina Denaro, has been released from prison .

He has an incurable disease, so he is placed under house arrest , the Bologna Surveillance Court decided after the Court of Cassation, accepting the appeals of the lawyer Antonino Napoli, annulled three orders rejecting the deferral of the sentence or the granting of house arrest, following the transfer of the boss to the diagnostic and therapeutic centre of the Parma prison.

Ernesto Fazzalari, detained for 9 years under the 41 bis regime , had been sentenced to life imprisonment in the Taurus trial. A sentence later reduced to 30 years by the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Reggio Calabria.

Fazzalari was one of the protagonists of the feud that, between the 80s and 90s, transformed Taurianova into the theater of one of the bloodiest clashes between the 'ndrangheta clans. Those were the times when, in the square of the small town in the Piana di Gioia Tauro, the bosses cut off heads to use them for target practice .

With his brother Domenico and his cousin Salvatore, Ernesto Fazzalari is one of the leading figures of the Avignone-Zagari-Viola clan . When he was captured by the Carabinieri in the Piana di Gioia Tauro, the boss had been wanted for over 20 years and had been placed in second place, behind only Matteo Messina Denaro, in the list of the most dangerous fugitives.

Subjected to harsh prison, during his detention he was diagnosed with a serious pathology that led the defense, represented by the lawyer Antonino Napoli, to request the deferral of the sentence or house arrest.

«The Surveillance Court of Bologna - states the lawyer - by granting house arrest to Ernesto Fazzalari has in fact applied the principle of legal civilization that establishes the prevalence of the right to health as a guarantee of the dignity of the prisoner and the humanity of the punishment».