Casteldaccia Massacre: Victims’ lungs completely asphyxiated by gas, no mass funerals for five workers.

Last Updated: May 9, 2024

Strage di Casteldaccia, i polmoni delle vittime totalmente asfissiati dal gas: niente funerali collettivi per i cinque operai

Giuseppe La Barbera, the youngest victim of the workplace massacre in Casteldaccia, on the outskirts of Palermo, “had his lungs completely suffocated by gas.” This information is learned while autopsies are being conducted on the five workers. After the autopsies, which will conclude tomorrow at the Policlinico of Palermo, the authorization for burial will be granted and the families will be able to schedule funerals.

There will be no shared funerals for the five victims of the workplace accident in Casteldaccia, who died suffocated on Monday while working on the sewer system. When the autopsies are completed, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Termini Imerese, which is investigating the massacre, will authorize the burials. The Public Prosecutor of the Termini Imerese Prosecutor’s Office, Elvira Cuti, who is in charge of the related criminal proceeding, appointed four forensic doctors from the same Palermo Institute of Legal Medicine to carry out the autopsies: Stefania Zerbo, Ginevra Malta, Erika Serena Sorrentino, and Tommaso D’Anna.

The four appointed experts will determine the causes of death and clarify if the deaths are compatible with the inhalation of toxic gases and due to asphyxia. They will have ninety days to submit their expertise with conclusions. The autopsies will also involve other forensic doctors appointed as technical consultants for the victims’ families.

At the moment, the only person under investigation is the surveyor Nicolò Di Salvo, 67 years old, owner of Quadifoglio Group, the company for which four of the five victims worked. He has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and serious injury, with the aggravating circumstance of violating safety regulations. No expert has intervened on behalf of the suspect.