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An Italian businessman has admitted to masterminding a bomb attack at the home of Sigfrido Ranucci, a prominent investigative journalist, claiming it was intended to boost his security protection.
Valter Lavitola, who was friends with Ranucci, the host of Report, an investigative programme aired by the state broadcaster, Rai, made the confession to investigators after his arrest earlier this week in connection with the case, the businessman’s lawyer, Sergio Cola, told the Italian media.
It was originally thought that the mafia had been behind the attack in October last year when a rudimentary but powerful bomb was detonated outside Ranucci’s home in a town near Rome, almost destroying his car and another owned by his daughter.
Four other people allegedly commissioned by Lavitola were arrested in late June on suspicion of carrying out the attack.
Cola said Lavitola had orchestrated the attack in order to boost Ranucci’s security detail amid threats to his life from the mafia.
“He did it for Ranucci’s good, because he was a target of attacks,” he said.
Lativola denied allegations that the motive had been to enhance Ranucci’s popularity with the aim of him entering politics, something Lativola allegedly hoped to benefit from too.
The allegations were outlined in an investigative report, seen by the Guardian, which included telephone conservations including one allegedly from Lavitola telling Ranucci “you will be prime minister in two years”.
There has been no suggestion from investigators that Ranucci, who previously expressed shock over Lavitola’s alleged involvement, was aware of the plot.
Ranucci, whose investigations for Report focus on alleged crime and corruption, often involving government ministers, is suing unnamed commentators and politicians who accused him of staging the attack for his own benefit for defamation.
His lawyer, Roberto De Vita, said that if the allegations of Lavitola’s motive were correct then Ranucci was “a victim three times over”.
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“He is a victim of a serious, dangerous attack, of betrayal, of being exploited by a friend in a delirious show of madness and, last but not least – and perhaps most seriously – of a massive and persistent campaign of media and political lynching that, through conjecture and insinuations, has sought to portray the victim as the more-or-less-willing beneficiary of the attack.”
The case has unfolded amid a broader debate about press freedom in Italy and journalists’ safety.
Ranucci has been outspoken about the alleged interference in Rai by Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government. The broadcaster opened an internal audit into his journalistic methods after it emerged in early July that Lavitola was being interrogated in connection with the bomb attack. The deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, has called for him to be suspended.
There have been questions over Ranucci’s relationship with Lavitola, a former journalist who owns a restaurant in Rome. They became friends in 2019 after Ranucci conducted an investigation into Lavitola, who has been embroiled in several legal proceedings in the past, including one resulting in a conviction for extorting the late former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Ranucci told Corriere della Sella in early July that he had “never hidden” the friendship, describing it as perhaps a case of “Stockholm syndrome”.
