Four arrested over car bomb attack on Italian TV journalist Sigfrido Ranucci

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Carabinieri detain suspects from Campania eight months after explosion destroyed investigative reporter's cars outside his home near Rome. Italian police on Tuesday arrested four people over the bomb attack targeting Sigfrido Ranucci, the host of RAI 3's investigative programme Report, eight months after the explosion outside his home south of Rome. The bomb was detonated in front of the gate to the journalist's home in Pomezia last October, destroying his two cars parked on the street - his own and his daughter's - and damaging a perimeter wall. Nobody was injured. Ranucci, 64, has been under police protection since 2021 due to an alleged assassination plot by the 'Ndrangheta organised crime group. Suspects The four suspects were detained near Naples and are strongly suspected of the offences of possessing, carrying and using explosive devices in a public place, of making threats and causing damage, with aggravating circumstances due to having acted in a group of more than five people and using mafia-style methods. Three have been placed in pre-trial detention and the fourth is under house arrest. The four suspects all reside in the southern province of Avellino. Investigators believe the group were commissioned to carry out the attack and paid several thousand euro to do so. The attack is believed to have been a reprisal for a Report piece on the Neapolitan Camorra mafia. Investigation The probe, handled by the anti-mafia prosecutor's office in Rome, was described by the Carabinieri as particularly complex. It involved close examination of video surveillance systems and phone records, as well as scientific analysis of the explosive device. Investigators said the suspected perpetrators appeared to have acted on orders from unidentified third parties, and that the inquiry was continuing to identify those who commissioned the attack. Ranucci told La Repubblica newspaper that he had been waiting for the arrests since the day of the explosion, and noted that several layers of involvement remained to be uncovered. Photo credit: photostock360 / Shutterstock.com