For the death of the 27-year-old, which occurred four days later in hospital, the young Antonio Riccio was sentenced in short, as he left via Leopardi in his car without providing assistance
«He received the maximum required by law and from this point of view we can be satisfied». But it is a bitter and tear-filled satisfaction for Luigi Granata, father of Rita, the 27 year old hit and killed by a hit-and-run driver last May 5th in via Leopardi, in Fuorigrotta. This afternoon Antonio Riccio, accused of multiple aggravated road homicide and failure to provide assistance, was sentenced to 8 years in prison from the Campanile judge of the Naples court: «Despite the favorable sentence for us – the parent immediately comments – there remains a strong anger at having lost a daughter in such an absurd way. He (the accused, ed.) only thought of himself, both in the immediate facts and during the trial, without ever apologizing to us, adding more pain to an already destroyed family.”
Rita Granata, 27 year old graduated in Diplomatic and International Sciences at the Orientale, employed in Rome and engaged in politics in Naples, she was a great fan of dance and judo. She loved life and that night she had recently returned to Fuorigrotta by taxi in the company of some friends with whom she had spent the evening at the disco. The car driven by Riccio, which arrived at the point of impact at a speed of about twenty kilometers per hour higher than the speed allowed on that stretch of road, however left no possibility of escape for the young woman, who later died in hospital after almost four days of agony.
The hit-and-run driver, after running away with his friend who was in the car with him, later tested positive for alcohol and cannabis consumption. Arrested and placed under house arrest with a bracelet, Riccio then asked to be judged with the abbreviated trial: procedural strategy that allowed him to obtain a four-year sentence reduction compared to what was required by law.
After months of silence, in this morning’s hearing the accused made a short spontaneous statement in the courtroomclaiming that if he could go back he would “never do something like this”, adding that he would have let someone else drive. However, an apology to Rita and her family did not arrive. The public prosecutor Fabrizio Vanorio, for his part, had asked for an eight-year prison sentence for Riccio and the prosecutor’s line was then fully supported by the first instance judge. The sentence was welcomed by Diego Del Regno, a civil lawyer who assisted Rita Granata’s father and motherwho, speaking of a “rediscovered sense of justice”, hoped that this tragic event “could also socially help other mothers to no longer mourn their children and that it would serve as a warning to the many young people who get behind the wheel”.
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