Blitz in the night. The State Police interrupts the feud between members linked to the clans for the control of Zen. Performed four stops
This morning, the State Police of Palermo carried out a detention order for the suspect of a crime, aggravated by the mafia method, issued by the Public Prosecutor's Office of the District Anti-Mafia Directorate of Palermo, against four people.
The accusation is that he was part of the commando that last Tuesday, March 23, at Zen, shot at COLOMBO Giuseppe and his sons Antonino and Fabrizio, leaving about ten shots on the pavement, including unexploded bullets and shells.
The arrested are considered accomplices of two brothers, already arrested the night following the crime, also subjected to arrest of a suspect issued by the District Anti-Mafia Directorate of Palermo.
A week ago, in the early afternoon, several reports of Zen gunshots were received on the 112 NUE emergency line.
Shortly after, COLOMBO Giuseppe and his son Antonino arrived at the emergency room of the "Villa Sofia" hospital, with several gunshot wounds, transported by car by Fabrizio, Giuseppe's other son, who was also involved in the ambush he was miraculously unharmed.
The Flying Squad directed by Rodolfo Ruperti went to the place and collected what was left of the armed assault that had just taken place, while in the hospital other policemen were trying to steal information on the incident.
The first investigations, a few hours after the crime, found decisive ideas for the identification of some of those responsible for the wounding of the COLOMBO relatives, collecting a circumstantial picture on the account of two men, identified as perpetrators of the attempted murder of COLOMBO Giuseppe and his son Antonino.
The suspicious load put together by the investigators of the Flying Squad led the DDA to issue a detention of a crime suspect, aggravated by the mafia modalities, against two brothers, who were then arrested.
Of the two, the elder brother was not new to the investigators as he was considered close to the Zen mafia families and already burdened by precedents for criminal association of a mafia type.
In the days that followed, the investigations recorded further developments, which brought to light elements and circumstances for which the shooting and the wounding of the COLOMBO were explained as the latest chapter of old grudges, which found the opportunity for a rapid acceleration during the previous morning, when the victims had had a trivial but heated discussion with a group of people, headed by the two brothers.
To have the worst were the COLOMBO, who soon became the target of an assault by an armed commando, of which today's arrested were an active part, together with over a dozen accomplices.
The command presented itself with a strong deployment of armed men, who arrived aboard at least 3 large cars and an as yet unknown number of other vehicles, motorcycles and scooters. The "paramilitary" organizational apparatus that the two brothers and their accomplices had set up had all the contours of a real display of criminal power, to be exhibited to the targeted victims and perhaps to the entire neighborhood in which the "punitive expedition" was staged. The ambush took place in broad daylight and on the public road, where the detainees exploded over a dozen gunshots that wounded the COLOMBO Giuseppe in the arms and left leg and his son Antonino in the buttock and right heel, while the two fled.
Arms in hand, the commando surprised the COLOMBO Giuseppe and his sons Antonino and Fabrizio on the street and chased them, firing at them, at eye level, while the three ran away trying to get to safety. The fugitives, however, could not avoid being drawn from behind by the bullets and were wounded.
The commando then disappeared only after leaving a dozen bullets and shells on the pavement, despite some of the attackers having tried to clean up the crime scene as much as possible.
The dispute the previous morning had been the triggering cause, but the investigators read in the ambush of which the COLOMBO were victims, as a story permeated with the typical logic of management of the criminal activities belonging to the mafia gangs operating at Zen.
It is the mafia "pregnancy" of the fact itself that allows the reading of the double attempted murder in this light, witnessed by the series of elements that characterized the development of the ambush and its operating methods, by its para-military blatant character, carried out in broad daylight and in favor of the eyes of the resident population, not paying attention to the commando of those who could have ended up victims and by the concern to clean up the scene of the crime, as far as possible, from the traces of the shots and to immediately hide the weapons used .
The double assassination attempt of 23 March is therefore framed in the context of frictions within the local criminal fabric, which are triggered by the exuberance that is recorded in the criminal undergrowth of the neighborhood, capable of fueling disputes and tensions within the apparatuses of the mafia family of the Zen.