Sensational breakthrough in the Garlasco murder case . Eighteen years after the murder of Chiara Poggi, according to Tg1, a notice of investigation was served on Andrea Sempio, a friend of the victim's brother .
The man, 19 years old at the time of the facts, had already been at the center of investigations , requested by Alberto Stasi's lawyers on the DNA found under Chiara's nails. DNA that was not Stasi's and that was the result of the victim's last-ditch attempt to defend himself. The charges were however shelved. As far as we know, the new notice of investigation comes following new DNA tests carried out with latest-generation techniques.
And on Thursday the man will have to show up at the headquarters of the Carabinieri scientific unit in Milan to undergo a saliva test and a swab. Tests ordered coercively by the investigating judge of Pavia after Sempio, invited to undergo DNA tests last week, refused consent .
Sempio is being investigated for murder in conjunction with unknown persons, or with Alberto Stasi himself, the victim's boyfriend who was definitively sentenced to 16 years in prison for the crime that occurred on August 13, 2007.
The case (very long, five trials and two acquittals before the conviction) was finally closed last February with the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights that rejected, calling it unfounded, the appeal of Stasi's defense that asked for the annulment of the conviction. The end of the sentence of Alberto Stasi, now 42 years old, is scheduled for 2030. It could be brought forward to 2028 for good behavior .
The crime
Chiara Poggi was 26 years old, she was beaten to death with a blunt object never identified nor found in the villa where she lived in Garlasco with her family on the morning of August 13, 2007. She was alone at home, her parents and brother were on vacation, according to investigators she knew the killer because she opened the door in her pajamas. The case had a huge media resonance.
The comments
"Andrea Sempio is stunned and shocked," said the lawyer Massimo Lovati who is defending the young man who has once again ended up under the spotlight of the Pavia Public Prosecutor's Office.
"We have nothing to say. We learned about it from the news... and we have nothing to say." A calm but tormented voice from Rita Poggi, Chiara's mother, who does not want to comment on the new investigative developments in the case. When asked if the incident reopens an ordeal for the family, Poggi simply said: "Imagine it."
(Unioneonline/L)