Cristian Loi , one of the defendants, was heard in the Court of Assizes in Sassari, on the charge of procured escape , in the trial relating to the story of "Johnny the Zingaro" , found in September 2020 in the locality of Zinziodda, in the Turritan hinterland, after 14 days on the run. Giuseppe Mastini , this is the real name of the lifer , had taken refuge there after not returning to Bancali, where he was detained, at the end of a bonus permit.
A place that Loi, heard today in the hearing, frequented because, as he declared, he kept «a pickup truck and an excavator» parked there , work tools, thanks to the owner's permission.
He was not the only one, he said, because that square was "a sea port" where many passed through.
There was also, in that area, a farmhouse where Mastini had found refuge and where he would be accompanied by his partner, Giovanna Truzzi , also accused together with Lorenzo Panei , assisted by the lawyer Paolo Spano, and Gabriele Grabesu , whose lawyer is Marco Palmieri.
«I – Loi declared to Judge Elena Meloni – had never heard of Johnny the Gypsy before those days and neither had anyone ever asked me to help him» .
The man, defended by Stefano Porcu, said he had approached that little house only to feed a dog, "like so many others".
When asked by prosecutor Enrica Angioni then denied knowing anything about Grabesu's alleged search for a house with a garden.
Truzzi, present in remote connection, did not want to provide any statement. With regard to the trial, Mastini's position was removed because, at the time, he had asked for a plea bargain rejected by the investigating judge which caused him to be "unhooked" from the other defendants.
