did not return to prison after a leave

New escape for Giuseppe Mastini, known as ‘Johnny the gypsy’. The 60-year-old man was on sick leave and was due to return to the Bancali (Sassari) prison at noon on Sunday. However, all trace of him has been lost.

The searches are underway by the provincial command of the carabinieri, coordinated by the Sassari prosecutor. This is the second escape after the one that took place on June 30, 2017 from Fasano prison, in the province of Cuneo. Also on that occasion he had gone out enjoying the regime of semi-freedom and had not returned. The same thing happened today. A search note was sent to all law enforcement agencies.

Giuseppe Mastini, aka Jhonny Lo Zingaro, is a repeat offender in terms of escapes. In June 2017, he took advantage of the outside work to avoid returning to the Cairo Montenotte prison police school, in the Savona area, where he had been assigned by the surveillance court. Sentenced to life imprisonment, since 1989 Mastini served his sentence in the Fossano penitentiary and it is from here that he traveled for three years to reach Cairo Montenotte where he carried out some maintenance work.

A character, Johnny the Gypsy, who between the 70s and 80s kept Rome under control. Illiterate, son of the Lombard carrousels of Sinti ethnic group, the gypsy is one of the main figures of Roman common crime. His criminal “career” began at age 11 when he was known to law enforcement as involved in a robbery and a shooting with the police. The first crime he was charged with was the murder of Vittorio Bigi, a tram driver. It was 1975.

Two, first, the sensational escapes of Johnny el Gitano: first the one from the Casal del Marmo prison, then the more complex one from the Pianosa island prison. In the summer of 1983 he was arrested again after a shootout with the police. Four years later, he received a license for good behavior. But it was during this leave, in February 1987, when Mastini was the protagonist of bloody raids.

Johnny the Gypsy, on a day that ended with his capture and that of his partner, Zaira Pochetti, faced the police forces in a real chase: Mastini stole several cars, stole gas stations, kidnapped a girl, Silvia Leonardi, shot a patrol of agents, killing guard Michele Giraldi, wounded a carabinieri brigadier, Bruno Nolfi. Now surrounded by agents and carabinieri, he surrendered in the Mentana camp.

Johnny the Gypsy was also identified, although without proven evidence, as a possible accomplice in the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini. According to some clues from the investigation, Pino Pelosi, to date the only one convicted of the poet’s death, would not have been the only person present at the Idroscalo di Ostia on the night between November 1 and 2, 1975. In addition to the two brothers Giuseppe and Franco Borsellino, the shadow of a third man with investigators to focus suspicions on El Gitano. Mastini, however, has always denied and denied any accusation, admitting only to having met Pelosi during his detention in the Casal del Marmo prison for minors. This investigation was closed by the Rome Prosecutor’s Office in 2015.

Johnny the Gypsy, to whom books, films and songs are also dedicated, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1989: he has been detained in Fossano prison for several years. On March 12, 2014, he used an award permit to participate in the Prodigy concert in Rome. In semi-liberation, he works in the police school of the Cairo Montenotte prison. But he didn’t show up yesterday morning and he lost track.