A 72-year-old jeweller from Piedmont called Marco Roggero has sparked a frenzy of political argument here in Italy, in a debate over the right to self-defence.
Marco Roggero is now serving nearly 15 years in prison. What happened is this: back in 2021, three burglars broke into his jewellery shop. Roggero took out his gun and chased the burglars as they fled down the street with the loot. Roggero fired. He killed two of the thieves, and wounded the other.
The court decided that what Roggero did was not an act of legitimate self-defence. The culprits were already on the run out of his shop, therefore there was no need to run after and kill them. The judges decided that Roggero, after the robbery, committed a crime just to defend his property, not his personal safety nor that of his family.
He was found guilty, sentenced to 15 years in prison and ordered to pay damages to the families of the robbers.
Giorgia Meloni has exploited the case for her own political ends. The prime minister has attacked Italian judges and announced that she wants to change the country’s law. In her view, Italy should be more like the US, where citizens have a much greater opportunity to take justice into their own hands, particularly on their own property. Had Roggero shot the burglars inside his shop, that might have spared him a few years in jail.
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It is not the first time this has happened in Italy, regarding jewellers and thieves, but it is the first time a jeweller has been handed such a tough sentence. It has thrown a lot of Italians into thinking about the boundaries between reasonable self-defence and unjustifiable murder, and the circumstances that may justify any kind of violence.
Meloni’s reaction has been somewhat nuanced. The prime minister called the 15-year sentence “ridiculous” and “disproportionate”, and is pushing for a presidential pardon.
She seems to have no moral qualms about being so strident, even though two Italian citizens were shot to death. She strongly believes that in certain situations, nobody, not even the judges, can rule over the emotional reactions of a victim of robbery. The urge for retaliation is natural.
“Who are we to know what it feels like,” Meloni asked, rhetorically, “the stress, the fear, the pressure in that precise moment, the anguish for the safety of one’s family. The overall trauma.”
With just one year until the next elections, she’s turning the Roggero sentence into a political issue of DIY justice, trying to raise her popularity among a particular section of those who instinctively supported him. Self-justice has always been a cornerstone of the propaganda of her Brothers of Italy party, and of Italy’s extreme right. But given that jewellers and shopkeepers are the backbone of Italy’s middle class, she’s also making this a matter for centrist voters.
Meloni is pushing to introduce a new law that takes into account the “emotional” element in crimes similar to the Roggero case, where the victim becomes the criminal. She’s using a new “safety bill” in parliament to trespass into the judicial sector. This threatens to blur the boundaries between the separation of powers and weaken the traditional checks and balances of democracy.
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She is seeking a law that regulates similar trials. Meloni wants the new law to clearly state that “whoever suffers injury while committing a crime cannot claim any compensation, nor can his family members do so”.
But if a special rule is introduced for the Roggero case, it becomes a dangerous precedent.
Law experts argue that Meloni’s bill is mere propaganda, used to meet popular sentiment rather than the need to fill a regulatory gap. There are already rules in place that allow judges to evaluate a victim’s behaviour and reaction to a crime. By taking it to a parliamentary level, Meloni is declaring war on the judicial system.
In many ways, her rhetoric and actions are reminiscent of Silvio Berlusconi’s crusade against Italy’s “communist” courts. What that tells you is that the war to win the 2027 election has officially started.
