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School bombing suspect held

June 7, 2012

Police in Italy have said they detained a 68-year-old man in connection with a bomb attack outside a school last month. One girl was killed and 10 other people injured in the blast.

https://p.dw.com/p/159qB
Firefighters and forensic officers investigate the scene in front of the 'Morvillo-Falcone' school where a bomb exploded in Brindisi, southern Italy, 19 May 2012.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa

Italy's ANSA news agency named the 68-year-old suspect as Giovanni Vantaggiato. ANSA said he was a petrol station owner from Copertino, a small village near the southern city of Lecce.

The man was arrested on Wednesday in connection with a May 19 bomb blast outside a school in Brindisi that killed a 16-year-old girl and wounded 10 other people. Investigators had initially said that a local mafia group might have been responsible for the attack in the port city.

Prosecutors said that the man was still under interrogation, adding that there would be a press conference on Thursday.

Italian media outlets, however, reported that the man had confessed to building and planting the bomb, which was made from gas canisters. The Repubblica newspaper said Vantaggiato had sought "revenge of a private nature" with the bomb attack. Another report in the Agi news agency said he was initially seeking revenge against the local courtroom in Brindisi, having failed to obtain damages in a recent lawsuit. The report said he attacked the school after realizing his preferred target was too heavily guarded.

Police chief Antonio Maganelli only spoke of "an important and definitive breakthrough" when asked to comment on a possible confession.

msh/ch (AFP, Retuers)