Mazzarino Friars
Their trial was a much-debated issue in the early '60s in Italy, in the context of the historical struggle between clerical and anti-clerical political forces prominent at that time.
)[1] After arriving to the friary, the superior spoke with two suspects, who told him that his life was in great danger and that he could save himself only by dropping the inquiry and paying 600.000 lire to someone they knew.
The scared superior paid the large sum, but was later blackmailed again by the Friars, acting like humble and frightened emissaries of a powerful crime covenant.
[2] After a few days, Father Carmelo met with Cannata's wife and relatives, asking for more money in order to have the mysterious crime group spare their lives.
The victim, city guard Giovanni Stuppia, got severe wounds to his legs and passed out, but managed to wake up and go to the Mazzarino Carabinieri station.
He told them about the extortion, the names of the four friars intended to receive the money and identified the four killers: Carmelo Lo Bartolo, Girolamo Azzolina, Giuseppe Salemi and Filippo Nicoletti.
The suicide looked suspicious, as his body was hanged with a bed sheet to a nail in the wall placed only about one meter from the ground, but no formal inquiry was conducted.
[2] Allegations were brought forth by Catholic supporters claiming that he was the mastermind of a plan by the communists to discredit the friars, who were not only called "victims", but even "saints".
Despite being very close to the Church, and risking a breach with the other Catholic forces in the country by this action, Carnelutti advised the friars to acknowledge their role, but stated that they could not act in any other way since they were under menace from the Sicilian Mafia themselves.
As part of the defense, Carnelutti stated that one of the friars, Father Agrippino, risked being killed when he decided not to collaborate, and showed some holes in a wall of his cell, allegedly marks of bullets from a lupara shotgun.
When asked about their cooperation with the alleged Mafia crime ring, Carnelutti publicly told the friars "If you will ever find yourself in that kind of troubles another time, do the same error again".
Attorney Alfonso Russo Cigna, a correspondent for Giornale di Sicilia, sued Cristina for defamation and won in an unusually short trial promptly instructed and lasting only 20 days.
Giovanni Leone, a preeminent jurist and then Speaker of the lower house of the Italian Parliament, decided to speak out against the sentence, while also wanting to avoid hurting his relations with his peers at the Democrazia Cristiana.
