Italy's top court upholds jail sentence for Mario Roggero, as Salvini calls for a presidential pardon and demands tougher self-defence protections.Italy's supreme court of cassation on Wednesday definitively confirmed the conviction of Mario Roggero, the 72-year-old jeweller who shot dead two robbers and wounded a third during a raid on his shop in April 2021.The ruling by Italy's top court brings to a close five years of legal proceedings and leaves Roggero facing 14 years and nine months behind bars. What happened The case dates back to the evening of 28 April 2021, when a gang armed with a toy pistol and a knife stormed Roggero's shop - in Grinzane Cavour near Turin in northern Italy - while his wife and daughter were present. As the robbers fled, Roggero pursued them and opened fire with a legally held handgun, killing Giuseppe Mazzarino, 58, and Andrea Spinelli, 44, and wounding the getaway driver, Alessandro Modica, who escaped. Judges at every level have rejected Roggero's claim that he acted in legitimate self-defence, ruling instead that the robbers' assault was "entirely over" by the time he fired, and that he could not have failed to realise this once he left the shop and saw the men fleeing. Prosecutors described his response as an unlawful act of revenge rather than self-defence. An Asti court initially sentenced Roggero to 17 years in 2023, later reduced to 14 years and nine months on appeal in Turin. The cassation court has now upheld that appeal ruling in full, together with an order for provisional damages of €480,000. In a video message posted to social media immediately after the ruling, Roggero said: "It's over. I'm spending the last few minutes with my family before turning myself in to prison." Following the verdict, Roggero's lawyers confirmed they were considering an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The relatives of one of the dead robbers welcomed the ruling, via their lawyers, arguing that it reaffirmed the principle that every human life is protected by law and demonstrated the independence of Italy's judiciary. Controversy The verdict has, however, reignited fierce political controversy. Deputy premier Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing Lega, took to social media to slam the sentence as "profoundly unjust" and appealed directly to President Sergio Mattarella to grant Roggero a pardon. Describing him as "a father, a grandfather, a husband, and a lifelong worker" who did not deserve to share a cell with "real criminals", Salvini argued that Italy's existing self-defence law - which the Lega helped introduce - had "spared many decent citizens suffering and imprisonment", but that it did not go far enough. He pledged to push for legislation further expanding the right to self-defence, and to prevent courts from awarding compensation to the families of robbers killed or injured during their crimes. Other figures on the Italian right rallied behind Roggero, including Lombardia regional president Attilio Fontana, who said he was ready to back the pardon request. The leader of the new far-right Futuro Nazionale party, Roberto Vannacci, argued that had the robbers not entered Roggero's shop, "two people would not be dead." Vannacci's supporters staged a sit-in outside the cassation court building on the day of the ruling, holding banners reading "Super Mario" and "Defence is always legitimate." Self defence debate The case has become a touchstone in Italy's long-running debate over the limits of self-defence, exposing a divide between courts that have consistently found Roggero's actions went beyond legitimate protection, and a political movement pressing to widen the legal latitude given to citizens who confront criminals in their homes or businesses. Last November, commenting on a the case of a man who shot and injured an intruder at his home near Rovigo in northern Italy, prime minister Giorgia Meloni stated that self-defence is "always legitimate."

Italy's supreme court of cassation on Wednesday definitively confirmed the conviction of Mario Roggero, the 72-year-old jeweller who shot dead two robbers and wounded a third during a raid on his shop in April 2021. The ruling by Italy's top court brings to a close five years of legal proceedings and leaves Roggero facing 14 years and nine months behind bars. The case dates back to the evening of 28 April 2021, when a gang armed with a toy pistol and a knife stormed Roggero's shop - in Grinzane Cavour near Turin in northern Italy - while his wife and daughter were present. As the robbers fled, Roggero pursued them and opened fire with a legally held handgun, killing Giuseppe Mazzarino, 58, and Andrea Spinelli, 44, and wounding the getaway driver, Alessandro Modica, who escaped. Judges at every level have rejected Roggero's claim that he acted in legitimate self-defence, ruling instead that the robbers' assault was "entirely over" by the time he fired, and that he could not have failed to realise this once he left the shop and saw the men fleeing. Prosecutors described his response as an unlawful act of revenge rather than self-defence. An Asti court initially sentenced Roggero to 17 years in 2023, later reduced to 14 years and nine months on appeal in Turin. The cassation court has now upheld that appeal ruling in full, together with an order for provisional damages of €480,000. In a video message posted to social media immediately after the ruling, Roggero said: "It's over. I'm spending the last few minutes with my family before turning myself in to prison." Following the verdict, Roggero's lawyers confirmed they were considering an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The relatives of one of the dead robbers welcomed the ruling, via their lawyers, arguing that it reaffirmed the principle that every human life is protected by law and demonstrated the independence of Italy's judiciary. The verdict has, however, reignited fierce political controversy. Deputy premier Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing Lega, took to social media to slam the sentence as "profoundly unjust" and appealed directly to President Sergio Mattarella to grant Roggero a pardon. Describing him as "a father, a grandfather, a husband, and a lifelong worker" who did not deserve to share a cell with "real criminals", Salvini argued that Italy's existing self-defence law - which the Lega helped introduce - had "spared many decent citizens suffering and imprisonment", but that it did not go far enough. He pledged to push for legislation further expanding the right to self-defence, and to prevent courts from awarding compensation to the families of robbers killed or injured during their crimes. Other figures on the Italian right rallied behind Roggero, including Lombardia regional president Attilio Fontana, who said he was ready to back the pardon request. The leader of the new far-right Futuro Nazionale party, Roberto Vannacci, argued that had the robbers not entered Roggero's shop, "two people would not be dead." Vannacci's supporters staged a sit-in outside the cassation court building on the day of the ruling, holding banners reading "Super Mario" and "Defence is always legitimate." The case has become a touchstone in Italy's long-running debate over the limits of self-defence, exposing a divide between courts that have consistently found Roggero's actions went beyond legitimate protection, and a political movement pressing to widen the legal latitude given to citizens who confront criminals in their homes or businesses. Last November, commenting on a the case of a man who shot and injured an intruder at his home near Rovigo in northern Italy, prime minister Giorgia Meloni stated that