Sarah Scazzi case, for Cosima and Sabrina the last hope may come from the EU –

Rita Cavallaro

August 4, 2024

A young girl disappears into thin air and an entire town is plunged into a nightmare. From August 26, 2010, for forty-two days, Avetrana lives in terror of a monster, because Sarah Scazzi, 15 years old, seems to have been swallowed up by the earth. Her lifeless body, however, is found at the bottom of a well, recovered by the Carabinieri that her uncle Michele Misseri led into that black hole on his land in Contrada Mosca. He, the farmer of the small town in Puglia, swears that he raped his niece, in the throes of a sexual outburst that he was unable to control. But when the man is unable to reconstruct the scene of the crime, which took place in the Misseris’ garage, the investigators realize that that confession does not hold up. The evil ogre, as 26 judges have established in three life sentences that have become final, is not Michele, but his wife and daughter, Cosima Serrano and Sabrina Misseri, who allegedly killed Sarah out of jealousy. Pointing the finger at the two, and then retracting, saying that it was just a dream, was the florist Giovanni Buccolieri. And it was precisely the retraction of the man, who, while under investigation for false statements to the prosecutors, availed himself of the right to remain silent despite being the key witness, that could reopen the case, which ended up before the European Court of Human Rights with an application, presented by Professor Franco Coppi, declared admissible.

The appeal, about to be discussed by the Strasbourg judges, argues a series of errors. The emblem of the violation of the right to a fair trial due to lack of adversarial proceedings of the two life-sentenced women, who proclaim their innocence, is the testimony of the florist. To understand the story, we must go back to that afternoon, when Sarah goes out to go to the beach with Sabrina but disappears into thin air, a few hundred meters between the Scazzi house and the Misseri villa. “Someone has taken her,” Sabrina says as soon as the girl is missing. From that moment the kidnapping scene begins, devised by the murderers to hide the horrendous crime. Sarah was allegedly strangled by Sabrina and Cosima with “synergistic cooperation” between the two, one carrying out “the specific action of suffocation from behind of the victim” and the other inhibiting “any attempt to defend herself and any chance of escape,” the judges write. The motive for the crime was Sabrina’s jealousy of Sarah, “guilty” of having ruined her relationship with Ivano Russo, the dark and handsome man from Avetrana who was contested by her cousins. The fuse was lit by the revelation of a compromising fact, which was supposed to remain secret but instead was on everyone’s lips. Sabrina had stripped naked in the car, but Ivano had rejected her. Sarah had spoken about that episode and Aunt Cosima had gone berserk, seeing in her daughter’s humiliation the risk of repercussions “on the respectability of the entire family”.

And in the villa a “trial” against Sarah was supposedly held, which Ivano also attended. The violent argument did not remain within the walls of the Misseris: the cook told his girlfriend about it, who, after the relationship ended, told the prosecutors. At the top of the castle of evidence is the testimony of the florist, who supposedly saw Cosima and Sabrina in the street, while they were forcibly dragging Sarah into the car, as she was trying to escape from her tormentors. “I saw the Opel Astra station wagon, blue-gray in color, near which Cosima Serrano was standing, who was addressing her niece Sarah Scazzi, telling her in a threatening tone: “now she has “nchiana” inside the car”, making an equally peremptory gesture with her arm and with her index finger pointing towards Sarah. I remember that Sarah, who I knew by sight, was very upset and with her head bowed…”, Buccolieri says in the statement. Then he recanted, claiming that it was just a dream. But, according to the investigators, Buccolieri’s story was so rich in details that it could not have been a dream. During the trial of Sabrina and Cosima, the florist, a defendant in the other proceeding, exercised his right to remain silent. And the fact that the defense was unable to cross-examine the witness may represent a violation of the right to be heard and indicate that the two women did not have a fair trial. Now it is up to the ECHR, which could rule in favor of Cosima and Sabrina and change the fate of the two life-sentenced women.