Thirteen years after the fire that destroyed Città della Scienza in Naples on 4 March 2013, a Court of Appeal ruling imposed a sentence of five years and four months on former security guard Paolo Cammarota.
The ruling addressed the destruction of the Bagnoli science centre. According to reporting by Il Mattino, the appellate court attributed responsibility to Cammarota in connection with the destruction of Città della Scienza. ANSA reported that the arson charge itself was declared prescribed, and that the five-year-and-four-month sentence concerned the charges of collapse and intentional disaster.
What the appeal court decided
The reported appellate reconstruction attributed two specific actions to Cammarota: the opening of the facility to the arsonists and the final security inspection.
The alleged accomplices were not identified in the reported reconstruction, and the motive remained unclear.
Care is needed on the legal distinction: the available sources report an appellate attribution of responsibility to Cammarota and a sentence for collapse and intentional disaster, while the arson charge was reported as prescribed. That is not the same as a final conviction for arson.
A deliberately set fire
The published Cassation judgment records the technical basis of the case: investigators found the fire to have been deliberate, started at four points with petrol.
The fire and subsequent collapse occurred on 4 March 2013. That technical finding — multiple ignition points using petrol — underpinned the prosecution case that the destruction of Città della Scienza was intentional rather than accidental.
Why the 2022 ruling did not close the case
The case was not conclusively closed by the 2022 appellate ruling. The published Cassation judgment states that the appellate judgment of 7 July 2022 was annulled with referral for a new examination.
In practical terms, this means the appellate attribution of responsibility reported by Il Mattino and ANSA must be read alongside the later Cassation decision: the higher court ordered the case to be examined again, rather than leaving the 2022 outcome as final.
What remains unresolved
Three points remain unresolved on the acquired sources:
First, the sources do not establish the final outcome of the proceedings after the Cassation ruling ordering a new examination.
Second, the identities and possible roles of the alleged accomplices remain unresolved. The reported reconstruction refers to unidentified alleged accomplices.
Third, the sources do not establish a definitive motive for the fire.
Readers following reporting on this case should therefore distinguish between what an appeal court reported as its reconstruction at one stage of the proceedings, and a definitive final judgment. On the present evidence, the former is documented; the latter is not.