"We have analyzed what happened in Sassari and we are afraid that this type of crime could happen again." Giuseppe De Matteis, prefect of Cagliari, thus opened the meeting with the press, at 1.30 pm, at the end of the regional conference of public security authorities, convened by De Matteis himself to take stock of the measures to be adopted to deal with the emergency of attacks on security vehicles and security institutions. So much so that the summit was extended to the judiciary, with the general prosecutor of the Court of Appeal of Cagliari and head of the DDA, Luigi Patronaggio, with the prosecutor of the Court of the capital, Rodolfo Maria Sabelli, and with the one acting in Sassari, Paolo Francesco Piras.
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The prefect before the meeting: «It affects only one group»
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Prefect De Matteis remained deliberately generic on the "requests" that the Conference will make to the Government, certainly "the arrival of the Army" will not be solicited, he underlines when asked a specific question, "because that is not a solution. Instead it is necessary to counteract the criminal gangs by modifying the structural structure of the police forces working in Sardinia".
De Matteis spoke of "omertà" which "exists in certain parts of the island" and on the one hand complicates investigative work, while on the other "it allows these thugs to practice without anyone speaking".
Because this is another certainty: the gang that went into action at Mondialpol in Sassari last June 29th did not improvise in the assault on the vault. He did tests before going into action.
The work of the DDA and the Prosecutor's Office is proceeding rapidly, explained Patronaggio, Sabelli and Piras, especially in consideration of the fact that "there are now 12 million euros to be laundered", i.e. the spoils from the Mondialpol coup in Sassari, underlined the head of the Dda.
De Matteis finally made a passage on the mode of action of the attackers of armored vehicles and security institutions. "They acted with extreme brutality, demonstrating profound indifference to the damage they could cause, both to the police and to citizens."